Tag: Morning Meanderings

Yes… for two days I have got up every morning and had an experience of bloggers block.  I would stare at the empty post space that awaited something witty out of me…

and nothing witty comes.

Then…. last night while I was cooking dinner…. a literal breakthrough of topics hit the surface of my brain.

FINALLY.

Thats the good news.  The bad news is that now that I have all these things to say…. I want to say them today.  SO… you may want to go fill up your coffee cup before you read on.

I will wait here.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Back?  Ok – sweet!

First off – I have neglected to announce a few winners of late and that is soooooooooo 2010 me, and not 2011 me at all.  I must correct this and pronto.  First of all – YAY to all the awesome commenters of January.  The monthly winner for the random “thank you” drawing is none other than:

Kathleen of Boarding In My Forties

Kathleen please choose a book from the prize box and I will mail it to you (email me at journeythroughbooks@gmail.com)

 

and the winner of the most comments here in January 2011:

Laurel of Laurel Rain Snow Creations

Laurel wins a $20 Amazon gift card – I will send that your way today.  😀

 

WOO HOO to you both and thank you thank you thank you for coming and chatting here at Book Journey.  This comment contest is monthly and is going on right now for February!  Here are the details.

 

AND then…. The winner of the bag of Coffee from Honduras (from my trip in December is:

Sharon at Sharon’s Garden Of Books

And then there is the John Betcher SIGNED book giveaway, The Nineteenth Element….

Lori of She Treads Softly

Congratulations winners!!!!

 

In other news. for the audio book lovers who read these posts – Audible.com is having an amazing sale.  They have a sale on “First Of The Series audio – and over 50 titles $4.99 or less.   I picked up:

Wondrous Strange for $4.31

 

30 Clues for $3.91

 

k

1st To Die $4.79

 

There are plenty of good “first in the series” to choose from but these are three that I have always wanted to try and now I will!

 

And finally – all week-long I have been meaning to mention this but life and stuff got in the way, and yes, I forgot for a while too….  BUT- This coming Monday will be the one year anniversary for my hosting of It’s Monday!  What Are You reading?  This has been an exciting year of meeting many new bloggers and blogs thanks to connections through this meme.  I want to celebrate with a special Amazon gift card giveaway drawing for those who participate this coming Monday and I also have a bonus book that I just discovered in my book stash that I will give away as well to one random participant.  I love reasons to celebrate and this seems like a good excuse!  😀

Ok – that is it – and that is probably enough.  I have a review coming up yet later this morning and it is my day off (*happy dance happy dance*) so I will get a little reading done this afternoon!  😀

 

Ok – hello…

😀

I have been working out at the YMCA with my friend Heidi this week.  Yesterday we decided to exchange IPOD Shuffles to listen to each others play list.  Oddly – that was kind of cool.  She had upbeat jamming music that I did not have on mine – and I had songs on mine that she did not have.  It was fun to hang out on the tread mills and jam out to each others music.

Like a moment – in each others work out brain.

😛

What was funny for two girls close in age – we only had three songs that were a match that we both had on out IPOD’s.

Now we are going to find a way to capture out ITunes list to email to each other so we can fill in songs that we would like to have.  She had a few that were remixes that I didn’t even know had been remixed.

My number one song on my IPOD the one I listen to the most when working out is still Jai Ho (theme song from Slumdog Millionnaire)

That beat just gets my moving… on the treadmill, on the elliptical, on my bike:

Ok – I am out…. weigh in day and then work but then…… NOTHING.  Yes NOTHING.  I have no meetings tonight and I could do flips all through my house jamming out to Jai Ho because of this fact!  😀

Thanks to Alison, at Alison’s Book Marks for sharing in yesterdays comments on my morning post about a Seinfeld episode about “Nothing”.  I included it today.

Have a super awesome fantastic day!

Good morning.  😀
Really….

I got nothing.

I got up this morning, started the coffee and went to start this post and…

nothing.

Left the laptop open, went to get ready for my day hoping something would break lose from my mind, some little fun tidbit of life, a book thought, a memory, something coming up….

really…

I got nothing.

Yesterday was good.  Busy but good.  I was not around here at all until late last night when I caught up on your comments.  I went to dinner with friends last night and had a good time.

Chance and I have started doing Wii Fit at night…. 30 minutes… let me tell you the hula hoop test – is brutal… I don’t think I have every swung around in a circle sp many times trying to keep my mii (Wii’s version of ourselves) in action.  There has to be You Tube videos of people doing these moves because really –

they are HILARIOUS.

I am off…. work today…. work out this afternoon (Group Power and a little tread mill time), a 6:00 meeting to plan the Missions Banquet in March, and a 7:00 pm class.

Weekdays are never-never dull around here.  😀  I am hoping tonight to get in a little reading time as that part this week has suffered with a full schedule and exhausted evenings…. thank goodness for audio!

Hope you all have a wonderful day!  Thursday will be better – no evening plans and I am THRILLED to have a night at home!

Good morning.

Did 6:30 am come early for anyone else today?

(I am not going to mention that I was up until almost 1 a.m. with my nose in a good book.)

I heard my cell phone text tone and it popped me out of a bed.  In a groggy shuffle I made my way to the kitchen and with one eye (I could only spare one, the other was still asleep) I checked the message.

*work out at 3:30 today*

Ok…

This is good.  I am a little ( A LOT!) sore from yesterdays adventures back into Group Power and it would be easy for me to skip the workout today so I could recover chill a bit after work.

However…. this little text…

puts my day into overdrive.

I work at 8 am…. I need to get moving on that.

I work until 3 pm and then will hit the gym from 3:30 – 4:30 and then drive home by 4:45.

I have a fifteen minute window to prep dinner for Chance and Al.

At 5 pm two of my friends who I have not hung out with in a long while, Ruth and Colleen are coming over to pick me up so we can go and hang out and catch up over dinner.

While I am thrilled to see them, my day has become so full I am exhausted before I even begin.

How do you juggle it when it is all good things like this?

I am not whining….

I don’t really know what I am doing besides chilling with COFFEE CUP and thinking…. really, I need to get moving.

So – verdict?  Whelmed.  Yes, I feel whelmed.  Not over whelmed…. but right on the edge.  😛

Anyone else need coffee?  I am up.

Good…..

well….

whatever.

To say the morning got away from me would not be exactly true…. I was present in the morning…. but I did something I rarely do.  I got up at 5:30, checked the stove, came in and went back to bed.  Woke at 7:30…. and…

remained in bed.

I was tired.

When I did get up – eventually… at about 9:30 (I kid you not!) I prepared for my day, and went grocery shopping.  I picked Chance up from his friend’s house, came home, and put everything away.  I started a load of laundry and seriously was just going to skip this mornings meandering.

BUT…

somehow that just felt…

incomplete.

SO…

I read a few blogs…. and the ideas started to flow… I need to:

Find the Word Shaker book and get it posted…. sooner rather than later

write my review for if I stay and for the LOST encyclopedia

spend at least a couple of hours writing today

Finish reading The Kitchen Boy and This Book Is Overdue

Take an hour this afternoon and work out…. I don’t care how or where…. dance in the kitchen if I need to but DO IT.

finish the laundry

make supper

complete my book study for tomorrow night

organize the reading room… if not today – tomorrow.

Coffee Cup in hand – I am ready to go.  Whats on your Sunday “to do”?

 

Good morning.

For those who read the meandering yesterday – weigh in was 3 pounds down.  WOO HOO!!!

Last night for dinner I met up with girl friends who I used to work with.  LOVE these gals!  We had all been so busy since late November that we had not connected for our monthly get together in a while and this was our Christmas gathering.  We met at yummy El Tequila in town and I had a chicken fajita salad.

We also exchanged gifts.  I had bought each of them a photo frame that said “The Girls” and the idea along with it that we plan a fun getaway this fall that will result in great picture memories worthy of these frames.  Yes, I bought myself one too.  I also bought them yummy smelling candles.  I LOVE candles!

From them I received a wonderful $25 gift card to Barnes and Noble!!!  (Thank you Cindy you know me so well!).  From Heidi and Sara I received  a gorgeous book about the Split Rock Light House up by our cabin – SIGNED by the author!!!  You have to see this book!  It is beautiful – Sara and Heidi know me pretty well too!  😀

Then Sara produced a bag for each of us that had in it aprons for our newly annual baking weekend in November.  GAH!  They are so cool!  And she also had these super cute ornaments made for us!

So all in all – I love that Christmas has been spread out over a 5 week period!  Just makes it all so fun!

Today the plan was to peel out-of-town this morning to the cabin to write for the weekend but looks like I am going to have to put a pin in that idea and do what I can to catch up on my writing around here.  Maybe I will spend some time in the library this weekend and see if I can not concentrate there.  Either way – the plan for the weekend has been to write and that is what I am hoping to do.

Good Morning!

For those of you that read me often you are probably SHOCKED.

Me.

NO coffee.

Is that even possible to operate that way?

I am currently back in my training mode for spring and biking and whatever else I can get myself into this year so each Thursday morning is a weigh in.  Until weigh in time, I do not eat or drink anything Thursdays mornings.

The current training going on around here is nothing fantastic – Group Power, elliptical, treadmill… I can add more once we have Spring.  (OOOHHHHH how I long for spring!)

So – I am off – weigh in is at 8:30 am…

and afterwards…

 

that’s right….

C O F F E E

Ok…. as I look at this post title I am thinking that maybe this should be a series….

I believe a big sign of being a book dork is when you get a book in the mail and you actually do SSSQQQQQUUUEEEEE when you see what it is.

It is….

the Iron Queen.

I have not read any of this series yet but I have been wanting to.  Iron King has been on my shelf FOR-E-VER.  And then came Iron Daughter and it too waits on me…. then I seen Iron Queen and thought, ooh… if I could get a review copy of that book in my hands I will read all three books back to back and just have an Iron festival….

and the book came!

SSSQQQQQQQUUUUEEEEEEEEEE

(I just seen on Kathy – Bermuda Onion’s blog this morning that she is offering a chance to win the entire set of these books!  If you do not have them pop over and enter for a chance to win!)

Oh but I am sure as book lovers I am not the only one whose book dorkiness shows occasionally.  Come on.. share with me today – whats a “book dork” moment you have had?

Oh… and FYI:  I could have sworn I hit publish on this early this morning….  this post was ready to go at 7:00 am…..

Good Morning!

I was not around much yesterday because I went skiing.

Considering I am from Minnesota you probably are thinking this is like fish being able to breathe under water – we are born with skis on our feet and can leap tall snow piles in a single bound.

Well…

If that is true…

I am an impostor and will need to speak to my parents about my true heritage… 😀

Skiing is not something I do.  I went once with my family to Lutzen and mastered the bunny hill.  You should have seen it…. small children aside, I was the master of this hill.  Nothing could stop me!  Yet, when I tried a different hill I started down and picked up speed and had visions of Sonny Bono in my head and promptly fell over to avoid such a fate.  I took the skis off and walked (and walked and walked as it was really large!) down the hill.

However…. I rarely back down from an opportunity to try something new or learn something new.  So when friends of ours asked me if I would be interested in going skiing with them and learning more about it, I said, “WELL YEAH!”

(Of course this was a few weeks ago and I am pretty brave when it is not an on the spot commitment)

And so – yesterday, after work, that “WELL YEAH” came back to collect.  I met my friend Wendy (who was also roped into this agreed to join in the fun).  And at 2 pm yesterday…. we were on the slopes.

First – kudos to our teacher – Al is a patient patient man.  He took us open a little incline and had us “ski” down.  And again… and again.  AL would have his wife Julie demonstrate.  They are quite the team! Then we learned the “snow plow” or “pizza” which I preferred…. and then how to turn.  After an hour or so of this… we were able to try a partial slope.  Yes, we went half way up a hill… and skied down.

By the end of the day Wendy and I were doing pretty good… we each had one wipe out and are still alive.  We went into the chalet to warm up and by the time I felt the warm air, I knew they would have a hard time getting me back out there.  I was cold and I was done.

Fun day – and I learned something new so I guess that makes it a good day too.

Got to like that 🙂