Good morning.  Lovely (yet still dark) day here in Central Minnesota.  I am sipping at my ever ready cup of COFFEE and doing what I enjoy in the mornings, reading my Shelf Awareness that magically appears in my email each morning and as reliable as a faithful dog.  Love it.  Love it.

Oh yeah… I love it.

This mornings edition had a couple interesting topics and then I was reading an interview with Erin Blakemore and she was saying that the book that changed her life was Jayne Eyre.  She goes on to say that she has gasps of recognition as she rediscovers it for the thousandth time.

Jayne Eyre?

Thousandth time?

I couldn’t get through it once.   It is like the kryptonite book for me…. I want to read it…. oh yes, I want to say that I have read Jane Eyre but I picked it up and I got lost in the what….  language?  In the time?

I feel like I am a minority on this one… because I am constantly reading things like:

“Jayne Eyre changed my life – this is the best book I have ever read!”

“Through the years I always go back to Jayne Eyre my favorite book of all time!”

“A divine work of art that I will always carry within me!”

Wha?  Why do I picture that if I was in Jayne Eyre times that her and my fictional self would have been like Laura Ingalls and Nelly Olson?  And I am really not sure which of us would play what role as – like I have humbly admitted here…. I have not read the book.

So as I leave for work this morning, and to the cabin later today (there’s a big YAY!!!), I leave you with this question…. errrr…. questions.

1.  Is it just me who struggles with Jayne Eyre?

2.  What book is it for you that everyone raves about and you wish you could join the forces raising your glass to the author and to the book itself…. and yet you just can not get into it?

Anyway…. that’s where my head is at this morning.

Good morning Jayne….  coffee this morning?  😀

 

Good Morning.  I am off from work today, Chance and I are going to Staples to speak to a group about Kinship Partners.  Chance has been in our families life for 8 years now and we are going to talk about what we have done the past 8 years and how Kinship has really brought to each of us a better, fuller life.

A conversation I really enjoy having with people is discussing what our names would have been if we born the opposite sex.  If I would have been a boy my name would have been Rory.  Apparently, my parents had told me, there was a great western actor Rory Calhoun who I would have been named after.

Hoo boy… maybe that’s why I really don’t like country music…..

Oh… and just to clarify…. Rory is the one on the right.  😉

So just for fun… do you know what your name would have been?

Ennui:  pronounced ahn – wee

–noun a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom: The endless lecture produced an unbearable ennui.

I do not have ennui.  I actually just heard it used in an audio I was listening to.  They referred to it as teenage ennui, and I don’t know… I just liked the sound of it.

And of course… it reminded me of this:

No worries.  I think I have the opposite of this.  I have Off-wee.  Which would be defined as:

–noun a feeling of total ENERGY and contentment resulting from interest; excitement: The things happening in my life have  produced an abundance of  off-wee.

😛

(I can almost feel the dork meter rising within me…..)

Morning!  The best laid plans right?  In my head I was going to be up and at work by 6 am this morning.  I was going to have many things ready as I start training my replacement this week (yes, I am morphing my position at work – a good thing, no worries).  However, instead I slept like a log and didn’t open my eyes until moments ago.

Yes I have heard of alarm clocks.

Annoying things…. I don’t recommend them.  😛

Anyway I can not even tell you all the balls I have in the air right now because, well I just do not have the time – BUT before I fly out the door I had to have coffee and coffee means I write this post…. because this is my sanity moments of the day.

And I need this.

Like a vitamin.

The weekend was fantastic, I had so much fun at the Book Festival and I do plan on fitting that in again next year.  It’s hard to imagine what this was going to be like as the only “festival” related to books I have been to prior to this weekend was BEA, and well – you just can not compare the two.  Now that I have seen it, I know how I can do it better next year.  For one, I would be sure to sit in on several of the panels so I can hear what these bookish people have to say.

As I fly out the door there are a few pics I did not use in my weekend posts and I wanted to add them because they are just fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s it – I am out!  Have a lovely day everyone!

Good Morning!  I am still in the hotel in Minneapolis, but barely.  I am packed and ready to go out the door as soon as this post goes up.  However – first something totally random.

A confession.

You may remember that during BBAW (Book Blogger Appreciation Week) a few weeks ago I did a giveaway a day for the event.  The giveaways were for a few of my favorite things (yes, yes… cue the music…).  I did a giveaway with a large bar of Lindor Truffles.  Mmmmm hmmm…… Lindor Truffles.

Anyway, my winner and I were chatting last week and I had to apologize for the delay in my shipping as well as explain what happened.

I …

uh…..

ate her prize.

……

Twice.  🙄

Yes.  I ate the first one…. bought a second one, that night ate that one…. and when I bought the third I had the mailing package ready to go so I could purchase it and pop it in the bag and then the post office without having any time alone at all with the chocolate.

I guess that’s what happens when you try to give away your favorite things.  😳

Yesterday I had a blast hanging out with different Book Bloggers.  Reagan from Miss Remmer’s Reviews and I started our morning at a wonderful coffee shop by the event and met us with Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness, Ash from English Major’s Junk Food, and Alea from Pop Culture Junkie.  We had fun talking books and blogs before we walked over to the big event.

 

 

 

 

So much fun!  Right away Alea found herself in line for a book signing with Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.  I have never read any of these books, but found the price to be right so purchased the first book.  SQQUUEE!!!

 

 

As the day went on I had the chance to talk to a few other authors I have read/and or reviewed.  I seen Colin Sokolowski, author of The Accidental Adult.  I didn’t get a chance to get a picture with him, but I did have a chance to talk to him about his book and how it was going.

Here are other connections I made throughout the day.

 

 

 

 

For lunch, Joanne from Jo Jo Loves To Read was able to join us.  We also met up with Liz from Consumed By Books and she was a new blog for me to check out, which I spent time on last night thinking it was brilliant.

I hope you check out all of these amazing bloggers I linked to here this morning.  We had so much fun.

I will post later when I get home about the panel!  Saving that one for a separate post 😀

Good Morning from the Twin Cities!  I am in our hotel room with Reagan (Miss Remmer’s Reviews) HELLO PEOPLE!!!!!

(If you had any idea how many times I repeated HELLO PEOPLE and waved to my computer screen while trying to think of what to write next…..  )  😛

ANYWAY…

Last night Reagan and I met up with Joanne from Jo Jo Love’s To Read along with her lovely daughter, and Michelle from Red Headed Book Child.  We ate at a lovely restaurant called Caio Bella and had a great discussion around books, and blogging, and whatever else we could think of.  What a blast!  Thanks girls!  That was so fun!!!

 

 

 

Today… errrr… now, we are off to coffee to find Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness and Ash from English Majors Junk Food and Alea from Pop Culture Junkie. Then…. the Book Festival!  WOO HOO!!!!

GAH!  I mean… morning!  I have been packing this morning and getting ready to leave for the cities right after work.  This means instead of planning my morning time with you, I have spent it finding my camera charger, a sweater, something casual, something nice…. GAH!

HOWEVER – before I run out the door to the gym I wanted to stop, have a half of cup of coffee (yes – that is unheard of I know!) and share with you this event going on right now:

 

I stumbled on to this and unfortunately have not had a lot of time to explore it so I can not tell you all lot about it, however I can give you the website so if you care to you can check it out.  It sounds interesting to me.  It is called The  Novel:  Live!

That’s my time.  I will try to stop in on Twitter tonight once I am in the hotel room and settled in the cities.  Twitter ID:  bookjourney

I will give updates throughout the weekend of whats happening at the festival.

 

G’ Mornin’!  We are here again!  This week has flown by so quickly!  I had such great plans of what I would get done earlier this week and now…. here it is Thursday and between work, work outs, and meetings…. yeah.  I pretty much have accomplished nothing.

Tomorrow after work I leave for the cities to meet up with Reagan (Miss Remmer’s Reviews) and throughout the weekend, 5 other book bloggers from around the area.  That will be fun.  We will all be at the Twin Cities Book Festival and just yesterday I received questions from the panel I will be on:

 

 

1.  What do you see as the biggest change to reading and books of the last 5 years? Please name one good and one bad.

2. Based on that, what is the biggest challenge to what you do each day as a books professional/avid hobbyist?

3. What needs to change for the book business to be all it can be?

4. How do you personally decide what to read next? What is your “reading strategy?”

 

 

There are great questions and I would to hear your take on these if you have any.   I am excited and nervous to be on this panel.  I know it will be a lot of fun and I am hopeful that all the book bloggers I am with have a chance to meet some incredible authors and publishers.

I have to run… this cold, or virus, or whatever I have going on has run me down to the point I am sleeping later and not having as much time in the morning as I usually do to hang out and enjoy that extra cup of coffee.  😛

Have an awesome day everyone!

😀

Good Morning!  Wednesday already can you even believe it?  I feel like the days are flying by and now I am only two days out from going to the Twin Cities for the Book Festival and Book Blogger Meet Up!  WOW!  I will talk more on that yet this week 🙂

Last night my book club met and reviewed The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.  Every October we read a Classic and this year we thought it would be fun to wear old-time hats.  My search went on after work yesterday where my goal was to go for the whole look.  We have two great second-hand stores in town and my first stop found me the best shoes for the look – in fact they looked a lot like the shoes on the book cover which to me was “SQQQQUUUUEEEEE” worthy.

 

 

 

However, my first stop had nothing for vintage hats.  SO…. I hit the second stop (one of my faves) and they had MANY vintage hats.  So I grabbed a couple of dresses and about five hats and of to the dressing room I went.  I left with the hat you will see in the pictures and a dress that you will not.  The dress was so awesome – black with a pick trim and lace around the bottom, it would have been perfect but was a size to small.  It was so cute and I can use it in the future and was such a low price that I could not pass it up (plus now it is an inventive!).  Maybe with a little luck by Halloween we can see that dress!  Or, err….. shortly after.  😛

We had a wonderful meeting and good food.  The way we choose our books for our next read is that we each are allowed to nominate one book.  Then we go around and we each get two votes and the book that receives the most votes wins.  This was our nominations:

 

The Boticelli Secret by Marina Fiorato

The Butterfly Garden by Chip St. Clair

The Recipe Club by Andrea Israel

The Wishing Trees by John Shors

Rough Country by John Sanford

Everything is Beautiful by Katherine Center

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

The Help by Katherine Stockett

I know right?  Look at that selection!  It was so hard to choose!  A few of these are currently on my shelf to be read!  The winning vote went to The Boticelli Secret.  That will be our November Bookies book club read.

I am off to work and then Group Power and tonight a planning meeting for Honduras.  It’s hard to believe out trip is really only about 6 weeks out.

I will leave you with a couple of pics from last night.  This is not the entire book club, just the ones who wore hats.

 

 

 

Have a super Wednesday everyone!  😀

Morning.  I am feeling a little ill.  I am hoping to shake it as I work today, and have book club tonight.  Every October we read a classic and this years pick is Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.  We are all suppose to wear an old-time hat in honor of the classics, but I am really hoping I can pull off a whole classic ensemble. As of this moment however, I do not even have a hat.  😛

“Hello?”

“This is procrastination calling.  Congratulations!  You are our number one customer!”

*sigh*

I love that our book club likes to take things to the next level and it makes for great memories of our discussions and our year-end reviews.   I must be a team player.

Today after work I will take a buzz through a local thrift store and see if they have anything that inspires me.  If I could come up with something like this I would be thrilled:

 

 

Ok I am out of here.  Have a super day and hopefully tomorrow I will feel awesome and have something way more intelligent (or at least funny) to say.  😛