Good Morning.

So here is my awkward moment for the a.m.

I wake up this morning humming this song about lipstick…. your lipstick… the only two words I can recall of this entire song, but oh no, that doesn’t stop me…. I am going through my house singing, “Your lipstick…. da da dada…”

Yeah.

How cool am I?

So as it continues to drive me nuts I Google the words “your lipstick song” and come up with this:

That is actually the song stuck in my head and then I spend the next 20 minutes or so trying to figure out where I would have heard it to stick it in my head anyway…. (I don’t listen to a lot of music… I am more an audio book chick when in my car or cleaning around the house).  Then it hits me, this is a Group Power song.  It is one of the songs we listen to as we lift weights….

and I have not gone to Group Power for almost three weeks now between my traveling to Honduras and the business of Christmas planning…

Is it possible the class is calling me home?  Telling me I have had enough Biscotti and chocolates and it is time to get moving towards a healthier more positive direction?

*gulp*

😯

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading, is where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week.  It is a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list.

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.  You receive one entry for every 10 comments, just come back here and tell me how many in the comment area.

Last weeks winner:

Samita from Book Purring

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

What a great week!  It was busy but so good and I am excited to share my highlights with you:

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (Finally!  Finally I read this book and well, what was I waiting for?)

Guess What I Got For Christmas!!! SSSQQQQUUUEEEEEE!!!

The Secret Society Of The Pink Crystal Ball by Risa Green (Super YA read!)

Relentless by Dean Koontz – audio review (I love Koontz…. but this one was an EPIC FAIL)

WHERE Are You Reading Challenge 2011 (it’s not to late to join in the fun!)

I did not get the reviews written that I wanted to but have high hopes that I will get caught up this week.  With the holidays over my spare time is once again returning to a normal level.  (Fingers crossed on that anyway!)  My reading plan for this week is as follows:

“Even now, after all these years, I can hardly bear to look in a mirror,” is the opening line of this dark, atmospheric, densely patterned novel. Ghanaian pre-teenager Ajuba is sent to boarding school in Devon. A lonely, confused child, she befriends the charismatic Polly Venus, who talks entirely in transatlantic clichés (“Hallo?”, “That totally sucks!”, “You just don’t get it, do you?”). Exploring the attic of Polly’s house they find a bundle of what they take to be kitten bones. But they’re not. They are the bones of babies.

Inspired by their reading of the magazine True Murder, the pair form “Crimebusters” to solve the mystery; but the past tragedy which they make a game of investigating is an ironic foreshadowing of the tragedies looming over them and their families.

Fallen angels sure seem poised to become the new vampires, with a similarly ideal blend of brooding mystery and sexy rebellion. After a fiery accident kills a boy she is crushing on, Luce gets sent to a reform school populated, most notably, by two gorgeous fellas, Daniel and Cam. Cam is safe and charming and eager to win Luce’s affections, while Daniel operates somewhere between aloof and downright hostile toward her. Readers will figure out Luce and Daniel’s star-crossed-lovers angle early on, making the hints dropped throughout about past lives and dangerous fates more obvious than compelling.

This book was a Christmas present to me last year.  Yes… last year.  About time I read it right?

This sequel to Fallen (Delacorte, 2009) continues they complex tale as Luce tries to uncover the truth and break the cycle of falling in love, dying young, and being reincarnated. Daniel, her lover through the ages and a fallen angel, institutes a truce with Demons to protect her from the Outcasts, who would do her harm. For her safety, Daniel hides her at a boarding school for the Nephilim, children of human and fallen angels, and cautions her to remain on campus and learn all she can. Unfortunately a little knowledge can be dangerous and Luce’s naive attempts to manipulate her powers constantly put her and others in danger. Some of the rescues employ a deus ex machina as is the case when Arriane inexplicably arrives in Vegas and saves the day. At times the story plods along, with a full chapter devoted to a fencing lesson. Daniel regularly returns to check on Luce and there’s lots of swooning, passionate kissing, and playing at being in love, though it often ends with bickering. Interest is piqued with the hint of a love triangle, and the suspense is ratcheted up in the heart-pounding final battle scene.

I usually have a good reading week during New Years Week.  We are not big New Years people so that usually gives me a bonus weekend of reading and I look forward to it.

I am excited to see what bookish things you have all been up too and what you are reading.  Please add you post link to the “Click Here” Linky.  I will be around to visit your post and see what i will add to my own reading agenda for 2011.  😀

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There are certain times of year that make me a bit melancholy and for me and for many others, today is one of those times.

This morning I sit at my kitchen table in the stillness of the morning and close my eyes and remember.

I remember teasing with my mom that last year over silly putty she bought the boys… I remember riding snowmobile with my dad, and I remember… oh how I remember and miss my sister Tara.

The people of my heart may no longer be with me on earth…

but the memories remain…

forever and ever

and no one can change that.

My wish for all of you today is that your heart memories remain as fresh and real as the day they were made.  That you know that you are never alone and that many people care about you – some you may not even realize….

Today is Christmas.  May yours be filled with love, happiness, and joy.

Merry Christmas!

Sheila ♥

Good morning!!!!

I had a wonderful nights sleep and am reading to put the finishing touches on Christmas planning and Christmas weekend.

This morning I sit at my kitchen table watching Al and Chance play cribbage.  This is my version if a modern-day Normal Rockwell.  Of course…. to the left of them you can add me to the picture with my oversized COFFEE CUP tapping away at my laptop and now the picture is complete….

I spoke to college Son already this morning and he is at the airport in Florida flying into Minnesota this afternoon and should be home around 5:30 pm.  NICE.

Tomorrow both boys will be home, College Son and Navy Son and we will all spend the day together.  I just have to figure out what I want to make for Christmas dinner and snackies….    🙂

On Sunday morning College Son has to go back to Mankato for work and Myself, Navy Son, Chance and AL are heading to our cabin up North for the day to snowmobile and spend the night – we will be back on Monday.

I do have posts yet throughout this weekend and I pretty much have a SSSQQQUUUUEEEE idea of what may be under the tree for me so you can bet there will be pictures….  😀

If I do not get a chance to chat with you over the weekend know that I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

What are your plans for this Christmas Weekend?

Good morning!

Do you ever have those nights where you just toss and turn and feel like you never really slept?

I just had one of those.  Until about 3:30  a.m. I am rolling around the bed, this way and that… my mind on some sort of mental caffeine rush.  I am processing Christmas, the gifts, what is left to do, plans for the weekend, my kids, my life, work out schedules, eating habits…

(I really should have just got up and done something really productive like clean a closet or crochet a quilt)

ANYWAY… the inevitable thing with nights like this is that I usually crash in the deep sleep around 4 a.m. only to awaken 2 hours later knowing that I have to get up.

GAH.

All that said, I do feel pretty good and I am ready to rush off to work and have an awesome day as tomorrow – Friday, I am off.

WOO HOO!!!  Perfect timing to prep for Saturday and the weekend… which I will talk more about tomorrow.

G’ Morning.

It is true that I am over the worst of being sick.  All that is really left is the cough which is annoying but doesn’t feel like I am on death watch like I felt a couple of days ago.

With the post I put up yesterday about all the Biscotti that I was cranking out in my new-found health… I have to add that the insanity continued into last night as well.

I believe I am pretty much “biscottied” out.  Ten batches and way too much sampling has put me in a biscotti like coma…. seriously, I think you could dip me in a cup of coffee and I would hardly crumble at all.  I even smell like a cookie and that is after my shower…. it must be in my pores.  How festive of me.  😎

I am going to seriously need to hit the gym and hit it hard after the holiday weekend.

Any other baking comas out there?

Good morning.

Lets recap yesterday to relive how I made it to this post title…

Morning…. blah’s  still sick, skip the gym.  have a 10 a.m. meeting to attend but go home from work afterward.  Fall asleep in recliner until 4:15 pm.

Afternoon:  Wake up when Chance gets home off of bus.  The plan is to crawl from my recliner position to my bedroom and go back to sleep, but oddly I have a burst of energy.

Late afternoon:  I start making Biscotti for my co workers.  I had bought the ingredients over the weekend but have not felt well enough to do anything with that.  I start by making a double batch of Chocolate Dipped Orange and then a double batch of Chocolate-Chocolate.  I complete both of these and then proceed to make Pickle Butts (hey – I don’t make the names for these things!) for an appetizer potluck and White Elephant Christmas party we are invited to.

6:30 pm:  Arrive at White Elephant party, eat real home-made connoles made in front of us by a guy who is 100% Sicilian.  Uhhh… yum.

8:30 pm:  back home and crank out a double batch of Cinnamon hazelnut biscotti to finish off my gift bags for tomorrow at work.  Finish cooking at 10 pm.

6 batches of biscotti – thus the post title.

As of this morning I am feeling good and am optimistic that my 4 days of being bogged down with this horrible sinus/cold/headache/achy bone thing is over.

*Happy dance.*