Tag: Morning Meanderings

I think it is going to be a good day.  I feel good.  Plenty of sleep and after work today two of my friends and I are going to go see the movie Couples Retreat.  Maybe it will be a mind numbingly ridiculous movie… but adding my friends Suzette and Karol makes that ok.   🙂

What I really want to share today (and I cant wait any more!) is that yesterday afternoon I received a beautiful package in the mail.  Just look at it!

Nice huh?  It was my Holiday Swap book!  It came with a wonderful card and turned out to be a great book off my wish list, The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton! I am seriously jumping up and down!  I LOVE this book!

So thank you to my secret Holiday Swap blogger:  Helen, from

Helen’s Book Blog!

I am preparing my packages to go out today – I have signed up for The Holiday Swap and The Secret Santa

Did any of you sign up for these?  Do you do one with your family or at your job?

Good morning all!  Coffee Cup is close by and I think I can say I have officially covered from Thanksgiving weekend!  I am feeling energized and have been looking at some exciting ads coming through my email for books.  This morning I came across this lovely treasure:

This book is The Chronicles Of Narnia leather bound.  (This puts a whole new level on my cover snobbery! )  How gorgeous is that?  Oh, and there are more!  Sherlock Homes, Arabian Nights, Fairy Tales, Vampire Chronicles, and The Complete works of Lewis Caroll!  How about that for the book lover on your list this Christmas?

I am not working for Barnes and Noble…. just seen something cool and had to share it this morning.  😉  Have you come across any great looking gift ideas?  Share them here!  I am always stuck on what to get others!

I had good intentions of putting up a post this morning but that didn’t happen.  I went to the 8:15 am service, came home and our oldest son was here so he and I put away the lawn furniture… yes, that same furniture I took a picture of and posted about two weeks ago that I needed to get that done before the snow came.  Well… it is done now and so far, we are snow free.  (Tiny “woo hoo” to that one!)

So now – the house is quiet.  Brad has gone home, Al is taking a nap… and I am in my favorite chair in the reading room, curled up with Laptop, Coffee Cup, and the next book I am planning to sink into, Children of Dust by Ali Eteraz.

Last night, I was on Twitter.  Honestly… I dont know a lot about Twitter.  I only use for my book communications and I enjoy connecting with fellow bloggers, authors, and publsihers through Twitter.  But I dont really get it beyond the basic updates and chatting.  For instance, I want to do #FF (Follow Friday) but I dont understand how.  I have a hard time sending a message to someone if they have not sent one on Twitter first.  Yeah… I am really bad.  I just dont follow how it all works.

So last night people are tweeting from the tweet deck (which sounds really cool like a big old deck of people chatting and eating appetizers) or from something about a wave (I really have no idea about that)… twitterfeed, twittergadget…. uh yeah, I got nothing…. BUT then I seen a tweet cloud and I had to try it and seriously… it was easy to do and basically it takes whatever words you use frequesntly in your tweets and puts them in this cute little cloud:

I mean come on…. is that cute or what?

So do you twitter?  I mean tweet?  If you do, do you use any of the different options to tweet?  Are there ways that work better than others?

Good Morning those of us who Are still at home at 8 am!  🙂  I havent been the Black Friday shopper for many years.  I actually used to love working it.  When I worked as a Department Manager at Wal-Mart this was my favorite day fo the year to work.  I absolutely loved to watch the people run in and just grab random things!  We were not allowed to work any new freight on this day, so basically you just watched the craziness and helped customers…. well, I liked that!  It was also a day you worked from 4 am to noon.  Then off you went to do your own thing.  I found being on the other side, “the shopper” I really didn’t enjoy as much and only did it twice.

Thanks to online shopping… I can sit right here in the comfort of my own home and click away at whatever I am looking for.  One of the places I will be visiting today is Christian Books.com they are having a huge sale and I browsed it the other day and they have many wonderful reads around $2 each, I encourage you all to check it out.  There are books, cd’s, gifts, movies….  really some great ideas there.

I will also be on Amazon today.  I have to get my book club read yet for December as well as the two secret santa gifts I need.

Other than that today I am finishing up the book Thanksgiving At The Inn.  I also have a couple posts to do – one is the Cookie Swap post that has been going on at Bermuda Onion’s and at Booking Mama’s .  You should stop in a t both sites – they have posted some incredible cookie recipes and the fun is continuing today as they are encouraging us to post ours as well!  🙂  My other post will be the one I meant to put up yesterday (but was having way too mych fun playing Trivial Pursuit on the wii with my boys and then watching the new Star Trek movie) Healthy Bread….

So uhhh… yeah.  Cookie recipes…. and then healthy bread.  🙂  Perfect!

My question this morning is do you do any online shopping?  Any great sites you could share here?

I was up early (Coffee Cup too!) to start the traditional prepping of the bird.  I always go all out for this day even though it is just the four of us, Al and I, and our two boys, Brad (21) and Justin (19).   Since we have such a small family I think I over compensate with days like this.  I have a 24 pound turkey.  Don’t laugh….. ok, laugh.  I make a big one so the boys have left overs to take home and eat all weekend long.  What else is on the menu?

I have shrimp and cocktail sauce  (something to snack on throughout the day!)

Mixed nuts and M & M’s mixed in… (another mindless snack item)

I am making broccoli cauliflower salad with grapes (so ym and I make it light w FF Mayo and Splenda)

Sweet Potatoes (are a must!  And I have a new recipe this year that calls for FF Plain Yogurt blended in… sounds really good!)

Cheesy broccoli

warm whole grain dinner rolls and bread out of the book Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day (review on this book yet today!)

Turkey stuffing (the boys love this!)

Carrots and vegie dip

I think that is everything.  We have the new Star Wars movie to watch this afternoon and I have Trivial Pursuit for the Wii.  Should be a good day.  We dont really have any traditions… just hanging out together.  Next month Brad goes into the Navy (on the 14th) so this is a bitter sweet holiday for us…. and my job of course is to hold myself together… ha ha.

I am so thankful for my family, my faith, my friends.  I am thankful for our health.  I am thankful for all the things that my eyes are open to in this world and  the heart to want to do something about it.  I am thankful for all of you, for the conversations and the friendships developed through talking books.

How about you?  Any traditions today?  Any fun foods or plans?  I would love to hear what you do!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I as I sat up form bed this morning and looked out my window I see the light covering of snow that has salted its way across our yard.

First word of the day, “Ugh.”

For a Minnesota girl you would think this would be my thing.  It’s not.  It’s cold.  It’s wet.  It’s sloppy.  And it can really suck to drive in it too.  The game plan is someday we are not here for this part of Minnesota.  We hope to start leaving in November for warmer territory, and returning in mid March in time for warm up.  We have friends in the area that do this and stay in Florida.  We also have family in Florida….

Hmmmm…..

So is everyone getting the emails now for book sales at the big name stores?  Just this morning I received these two:

Christianbooks.com :  Has a huge selection of 80% off items.  I checked it out.  There are some great buys!  A whole selection of items under $2.

• Randy Alcorn’s Deception is $1.99 (if you have not read Alcorn you are missing out!  Fantastic author!

• Gift items too – cd’s for 99 cents…

 

Also Barnes and Noble has a 25% coupon off of one book if you use your Mastercard on your order.

Amazon is having Black Friday Deals Week going on now.  I seen a few things of interest there as well!

 

So thats what I have to share this morning.  I have a day in the office than off to the store to get all the things that I have procrastinated on for tomorrow.   I am purchasing two copies of Hunger Games for my boys and I will be baking out of the book healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day for tomorrows review.

Have you discovered any great book sales?

Do you have any reading plans for the upcoming 4 day weekend?

 

Coffee Cup and I have only moments before we need to get to the office.  I was up late reading…. I put the finishing touches on a review I have coming up in a couple hours and I had to (had to!) continue on with Catching Fire.  I am a total addict.

Today should be a pretty smooth day.  Nothing really on the agenda other than the office, perhaps a little work out if my friend Heidi gives me a call and a roast in the crock pot so dinner is planned and in process.  I havent decided yet if I am going to go pick up those last minute things I need for Thanksgiving yet today…. or hit that tomorrow.  We will see how this afternoon goes.

Today I leave you with a recipe for Pumpkin Soup.  I think this will be on our menu for Thursday:

 

Morning all.  Coffee Cup I will be rolling out of here early today.  Normally Mondays have more time to hang out as my office days are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday – but this week being Thanksgiving, I am going to go to the office today until about 2:30.

Yesterday Chance and I went to New Moon and I really enjoyed it!  I am just going to put my thoughts here as doing a separate post on it when I have so many exciting reviews yet to catch up on seems a little much.  So – first off I read all the Twilight series in January of this year.  Here is the review of New Moon.  (Take note I was not book blogging then I was more book journaling so no one was reading these reviews and they are not as “polished” should I say as they are now.  Actually reading that post now, I am kind of proud of it.  I had enjoyed the books and looking at my words, besides maybe adding a bit about the author, I dont think I would have changed it much from what I said.

As far as the movie goes, I really liked it.  I think the only thing I would say about it is that it moved so quickly through some of the scenes (and I know it needed to) yet in the book the motorcycle building and practicing and riding is longer, it shows the relationship developing stronger with Jacob and of course in a movie, there just isnt time so one ride … and move on basically.  Also, the return of Edward seems to come together faster, easier than it did in the book as well.  I remember reading the book and longing for Edwards return and Stephanie Meyer had really written this book well to keep us at bay with not getting what we wanted.  Like I said in my review, this book is a necessity to build Jake.s character up in us and in Bella.  Edward has to be out of the picture for this to happen.

Here are the other reviews of the series:  Twilight, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn. * Note – these reviews are fun to read because I am so open with how I feel about the books.  For instance, in my review of Eclipse, I say I want to bite Bella for being so wishy washy washy.  I want to bite her on the neck.  Fair warning.  😉

So – that’s about it.  It was a good afternoon!  It was fun to hang out with Chance and talk books!

Currently I am flying through Catching Fire and have reviews I really need to get written.  Yet today you will see the What Are You Reading Monday post and this afternoon I am thinking I am going to write up my interview I had with Pam Cope last week, author of the book Jantsens Gift.  This was a remarkable conversation and I cant wait to share it with all of you.

Have an incredible day!  Stop in, say hi, let me know about your weekend… the coffee is always on!  🙂

I am so excited!  Yesterday I finished reading Hunger Games and I feel like I have just been given the keys to the club that is all things Suzanne Collins!  I seriously can not even begin to tell you how much I enjoyed this book!  My review will be up later today along with my first use of the Spoiler Alert Button so those of you who have alread read the book can enter there and we can discuss the book in more detail!  I would really enjoy that!  🙂

Yesterday my friend Jennifer and I went on an 18 mile bike ride!  Yes!  18 miles on November 21 in MINNESOTA!  The temperature was about 48  degrees.  I was totally not dressed right and after I got home spent the next couple hours in bed with a sweatshirt on and three quilts on my with the heat turned up.  SO COLD.

In a couple hours here Chance and I are going to go and see New Moon!  I bought the tickets yesterday and I am really excited for this movie!

My In My Mailbox post went up late last night so if you are curious what entered the home of the DeChantal’s this week, please check it out here….

I have a 3 hour Leadership Training meeting this morning so not a lot of time here but wanted to grab Coffee Cup and say hi really quick.  I have winner s to announce later for the giveaways that ended yesterday.

This afternoon I plan to go to New Moon with Chance and I am pretty excited about that.  I also started reading Hunger Games yesterday afternoon and it is totally blowing me away.  I would have never thought I would have enjoyed a book with this sort of theme but I am so loving it.  Obviously more soon…. this will be quite the review!

You may have noticed my post on the Pemberley Ball.  Yes, I have been invited to a weekend ball of all things Austen!  Stop by and check out this clever event!

I am off for now.  Enjoy your Saturday wherever you are!