Good morning! Poo weather here the last couple of days which makes me a little disgruntled. Not like I have had a lot of extra time this week with a Wine and Words meeting, a City Board meeting, and Monday’s second dose of The Fault In Our Stars (glutton for punishment I am….) but… I want to mow the lawn before I leave for the cabin probably early in the am now because I will not be ready to go tonight unless I stress myself out – and I am going to try to not stress myself out.
About the reading…
Right? I am sad to admit that I am reading the SAME BOOK that I was reading on the plane on my way back from New York a month ago.
It’s true. It is that time of year of gardening, lawn care, house cleaning, being outside, walking, running, biking, cabin, projects, grilling…
However – this weekend with a couple days at the cabin that is about to change 🙂 I will of course be finishing up on The Three by Sarah Lotz (yes yes yes I have been reading a book about three plane crashes while I myself was on a plane). It is good, the formatting is interesting…. and hopefully next week I will be telling you more about it 🙂
Then… I will be looking at Little Mercies by Heather Gunderkauf (LOVE her books!) and The Young World by Chris Weitz. Yes – BOOKS. Glorious BOOKS.
Of course, as you know, its not that I have not been talking books. I have been doing a LOT of audio, a lot of REALLY GOOD audio. We still have a few days of audio month left….
Have you tried audio yet? If so what are you listening to?
If not, Why not read some of the audio posts here suggesting books and give one a try?
Please watch this site for June audio book related posts. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
To help you out – here are the posts that qualify for this Audio Month Giveaway:
Good morning. Happy Tuesday. Last night I went to (spoiler alert) Augustus’s funeral. Again. 😯 I went opening night with my friend Amy, but a few of our book club wanted to go as we had just read the book as a group this past month. It’s such a great story line and between book and movie I pick up a little more each time.
So… I have a funny story.
“No way Sheila! Something funny? YOU? Really?
Yes. And stop it. 😉
Quite a few years ago, I started using a product that is a skin softener with sesame oil. A friend of mine told me about it, I tried it and love to use it after I shower. It has a light scent to it that I love as well. About 4 years ago while up at our cabin hiking, I discovered a happy side affect to the product. While my friends were complaining about black flies (if you are unfamiliar they are NASTY buggers and bite), while I was not being bothered by them. I started noticing in other situations that bugs did not seem to bother me as much as others. It had to be the sesame oil.
Ahhhh….. miracle cure
I started recommending this to my friends who go camping, even buying it as a gift for people. I have been recommending it for years.
Then…
I told my friend Kate who I run with about it a month ago. She did not want to go on the trail because of all the bugs. I gave my sesame oil talk about the benefits I have noticed and that you can pick it up in any drug store in the lotion aisle.
A week later while on the trail with Kate I asked her how the sesame oil was going. “It’s wonderful!” she raved, “but the kids complain because it smells like skunk.”
I was confused. The scent is pleasant, not sharp or stinky at all. I told her as much. “You bought the same one I am using right?”, I asked. “In the lotion aisle, tall bottle, clear golden color?”
Kate looked at me. “Lotion aisle? No… I picked it up in the cooking aisles.”
I laughed so hard. Apparently Kate has been wearing this, and cooking with it. “The other night I made sesame chicken, there was some of the oil on me, and on the chicken.” Even her husband has been using it and they swear it keeps the bugs away.
It’s true.
Kate and I this last weekend looked it up online and sesame oil is a bug repellant. It is considered a natural mosquito repellant.
That’s it for this morning. Work.. meeting tonight… might start mowing the lawn again which means audio 🙂
What do you use for bug repellant? Any awesome secrets that work?
Greetings children of earth! And of course any Shadow Hunters, Vampires, Werewolves, Wizards, Witches, Warriors, Fairies, Elves, Pixies…. I really am an equal opportunity blogger 🙂
And apparently… need more coffee if I am going to be this goofy in the morning. 🙂
Ok… the number. That number is the number of posts I have written since Book Journey began. It’s interesting… I did not notice when post 1,000 and 2,000 went by. Yet, awhile ago I notices I was about 100 posts away from 3,000. Since then I have been trying to keep an eye on it so I could do something for 3,000 (after all… it will take a while to get to 4,000!) I was going to do a super cool countdown (or count up) and not tell you what I was counting…but of course, life was busy… I forgot to count.. and suddenly yesterday I realized, like a baby that is due… 3,000 was arriving this weekend if I was ready or not. 🙂
I already had a discussion question I have been tossing around to post today so please stop in later and meet 3,000, join in the discussion, and a special giveaway because it is 3,000 posts.
3000 posts.
Holy smokes right?
Moving on…
In bookish arrivals… here is what came into my home this week:
I am hoping to work on a couple outdoor projects today but right now our sky is “iffy” if not outdoors, then I will be working on a spare room today prepping auction items for Wine and Words. 🙂
Also – we are still rocking Audiobook Month here with giveaway:
Please watch this site for June audio book related posts. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
This morning,I was going to go a completely different direction with Saturday Snapshot. As I walked my yard, I was taking pictures of trees… I love trees and we have quite the variety, silver maples, apple, cherry, plum, oak, and even walnut. But – that one will have to wait. As I looked around the yard I love so much, I went somewhere else.
Last Friday June 13th marked the 13th anniversary of the tornado that destroyed most of our property, Al (hubby’s) business, and not only changed our lives forever – but those of our neighbors too. This morning as I walked the yard I started taking pictures of the “now” and then came in the house and took pictures of the pictures I have in an album of the “then”.
On June 13th, 2001, I had come home from work around 5:30. I remember all of this because I documented the day, and the days and weeks to follow, in a journal. The sky that night, I need no journal to remind me of. It was a thick sort of green and looked cartoonish. In fact, I thought it was so unique that I went outside and took pictures of the sky with my camera at the time. The pictures never did the sky justice, but one of the pictures I took from our back deck was this one of our neighbors farm:
The picture is much better in my album, but as you can make out this is a large farm.The next morning – I stood in the same spot on my deck and took a picture of their farm, or what was left of it, again.
So what went down?
Al had just left to go and do a bid for a guy on the south end of town. I was on the couch reading after dinner and the boys ( at the time they were 10 and 12) were watching tv. The tv came through with a tornado warning in the area. This is common for June in this area and I barely even flinched. Then, Al came running in the house telling us to all get in the basement. He had been driving and seen the wall of the tornado south of us, turned around and raced home.
We all went to the basement, us and our two dogs. We sat under the stairs and we could hear the wind pick up. The house started to shake and dirt from between the floor boards above our head started to fall. I remember I was sitting cross-legged and then thought better of it thinking if we did become trapped in the house how uncomfortable that would be to be stuck that way.
After a while – it just went quiet.
Al decided to go upstairs and look around. I was envisioning that scene out of Twister where the dad opens the door to the cellar and is whisked away. Upstairs I could hear him walking around saying “Oh no, no…” I told the boys to stay put and I joined Al upstairs. We had no electricity then – in fact we did not have electricity, or running water for the four days following. Through the flashes of lightning we could see our home, plants turned over, our bedroom door was ripped off the hinges and was now in the living room, our windows had exploded and shards of glass had embedded itself in the walls across from the windows. Outside we could see trees down everywhere and large chunks of our yard torn up.
I kept repeating, “We were hit. We were hit.”
Even as I type this I kind of tear up because it was a scary time for us. Al had just finished putting up his 40 x 80 building for his business out behind our yard, and the electricity had just been put in the week before. It was gone.
Here are some pictures from that night… to this morning.
Left – our home this morning. Right – that morning after the tornado. The tree that is down was a large crab tree, really the center focus of the front yard. It broke my heart to see that tree split and dying.
Left: The back of the house this morning. Right: The back of the house the morning after the tornado. The large tree still in today’s picture split in half and landed on our roof. This tree is the reason we did not lose our home entirely, the weight of the tree still attached to the deep roots help our roof on. The front of the houses roof lifted 5 inches, but never came off. LOVE that tree. 🙂
Left – the garage area this morning. Right – where our garage had stood before the tornado. At the time the garage was not attached to the house (perhaps a good thing) and the tornado completely took it. The red jeep and the white truck were parked in front of the garage as you see them here. My jeep was untouched and Al’s truck had a hairline crack in the windshield. The garage must have went straight in the air and left the yard intact. The remains from it was found across the road behind a neighbors back yard.
Left: A tree in our back yard this morning. Right: That same tree the day after the tornado. What is wrapped around it is the roof from Al’s shop. What is crazy is that if the roof had not been stopped by becoming caught on this tree, it would have hit our house at a speed of over 100 miles per hour. Al wanted to cut this tree down after the tornado but I said no. Then all the branches off the backside of it had been seared off, but today it is healthy and whole again.
This is a shot of our back yard after the tornado. The plastic white things are to put calves in from our neighbors farm. We pretty much had all of their damage in our yard and the neighbors across the street had all of ours.
More of the yard. We lost about 40 trees after all was said and done.
Friends who came to help with the clean up.
It is the pictures of the friends who came to help afterwards that brings the tears back to my eyes but this time with a smile. We worked for days afterwards, cutting up the trees, hauling away debris, repairing the house. It took over a year to bring the house and yard back to some sort of normalcy.
Here is what happened during the tornado:
all windows on the back side of the house were blown out
the back and sides of the house had the wood siding ripped off
we lost our garage entirely
Al lost his shop entirely
40 trees lost
garden was destroyed
another garage on the property was bowed in back like a “C”
Basement flooded the day after the tornado
bedroom (along back side of house) was destroyed
When all was said and done we resided the house with an aluminum steel siding. We replaced the large bay window in the bedroom with a smaller one. We saved the tree on the deck, he is half the tree he used to be but that is ok. 🙂 We have since remodeled the basement (2004) to now be a second level to our home – family room, a bedroom, storage and laundry. Al rebuilt his business with the insurance money and is now thriving. Our home has been remodeled, we built a new garage to go on the house, and our yard – while not as many trees as I would like…. has sort of a park look to it now and I like it.
The back yard this morning.This morning, I had to look hard to find it, but I did. This is a piece of metal that was driven into this tree in our yard during the tornado. It is a good 6 inches into the tree and will never come out. A reminder of what was….
This final picture was taken last night. I love my back yard. And if you look way out you can see the trucks of Al’s business, 13 years later doing well, rebuilt after that night that rocked our world forever.
It’s raining this morning. Hard. And that’s ok. I just finished mowing our yard yesterday evening and I was afraid that the lawn was too dry. I am in the office all day so this puts no damper on my plans of typing and filing and working on the annual report.
What I wanted to talk about this morning is blogging. It amazes me that about a year ago I wasn’t sure if I was going to continue on and that kind of scared me. Last June I felt in an entirely different place. I felt too busy to keep up on book reviews and book chats and I posted maybe once or twice a week. Maybe. I usually missed writing a Morning Meandering. I was hardly reading a thing so there was nothing to talk about there, and for a while I took a real look at wondering if my season had passed.
Since my time in blogging, a lot of great bloggers have come and gone. A few that really inspired me in the beginning of this crazy chatting about books, are hard to find now…. occasionally popping up on Twitter or on Facebook… but nothing on their site – if the site is even still there. All that time – typing, talking books, chatting, sharing…
gone.
And I had started to think I was too.
So what did happen?
I fought for it. I wasn’t ready to let go of my love of talking books, or my chats with all of you. I accepted that it was ok to step back and do life and not completely let go. So that is what I did and slowly throughout late fall and winter I came back…
but really it was the book expo this year in New York that sealed the deal for me.
I love the expo. I love my bookish relationships that I have made here talking to book lovers on this screen, and then meeting them in real life, and still chatting books with them. I LOVE talking to authors, and publishers, and the heads of publishing houses about what makes them tick. When at the expo, my mind flows with blog post ideas…
topics of publishing houses
connecting with narrators
audiobook week
blogiversary
meeting bloggers (I actually don’t like that word) meeting like-minded Book lovers
events
amazing books coming soon
author events
I literally started making a list of ideas on the plane home.
Soon I will be reaching a mile stone post. I see it coming and I am excited about it because it is crazy to think that for the past 5 years I have chatted books and life to you and I am as energized now as I was when I started. How crazy cool is that?
I can’t imagine going anywhere any time soon. This post was to hopefully inspire any of you out there that are on the edge of deciding, “do I go on?”…. its ok to take breaks. This is supposed to be fun – not a chore.
And I….
am having fun.
If you are a book reviewer/lover/chatter… ok ok, blogger, how long have you been doing this? If you have been doing it for a while are you surprised how long you have been doing it?
What energizes you to keep going?
Oh yeah – and don’t forget – it is audiobook month (I wont let you forget!) GIveaway here for a $25 gift card. An entry for ever comment you have on an Audiobook related post that I have up this month. To help you out… here is what they are:
So…. you probably know that this is audiobook month. I am having a blast sharing with you audio reviews, narrators thoughts, and now – I will let you know how I do like to do audio.
In my car…
Some people think that you do not listen to audio in the car unless you have LONG commutes or on road trips… not true. Audiobooks actually work on short commutes as well… it’s true. They don’t blow up in your cars CD player or anything if they play for less than 30 minutes. Urban legend people… its not true.
I listen to audio in my car almost everywhere I drive to. Work may be only ten minutes away – but round trip that is 20 minutes more into a book than I was before. I love turning on the car and getting into the story. When choosing car audio, I like the book length to be around the 7 -9 hour mark. I reserve longer audio books for longer road trips so I can listen to it in large chucks of time.
In my CD player in the house…
This is probably the “old school” version of audio listening but when you have many delicious audio’s on CD around and you want to listen to them, you do what you have to do. I have trouble downloading audio onto my computer, so instead I listen to the DVD’s. This is great for when I am working on a craft project, cooking, folding clothes, painting.. I love listening to audio in the house while I am doing other things that require use of my hands.
On my Phone…
What has turned out by fr to be my favorite way to listen to audio, is my phone. I use Audible.com which I LOVE LOVE LOVE for downloading great audio directly to my phone. I have used Audible for three years now and yes I am kind of a living breathing walking advertisement for them. The audiobooks are reasonably priced, they have great sales a few times a year, and your first one is free. If you try an audio and don’t like it you can exchange it. No kidding.
When mowing the lawn or gardening, or even biking – I pop my ear buds in and can listen to my Audible audiobooks. My phone is easier to move through the house then the CD player so I use it when I am on the move from one area to another. I even use it at work when I am alone and working on filing. I sit it on my desk and listen as I work.
My brilliant purchase that I made about 6 months ago to go with my listening to books on my phone was:
An external speaker. This, when turned on will pick up the Bluetooth in your phone and amplify the audiobook. This makes it easier to move around an area and say, leave the phone on the counter and still be able to hear it.
These cute little external speakers come in all shapes and sizes and start around $9.96 and can go up to $99. Don’t knock yourself out. Mine was $14.96 and works wonderfully. It’s cute, shaped like a clam shell and its orange. What’s not to love?
I usually have three audiobooks going at once and that works for me. For you – If you are new to audio I recommend audible’s free trial. You have seen many posts on great audio here this month – choose wisely and enjoy. I absolutely want to hear about your experience.
For those of you who do do audio (yes… I said do do), please share here what ways you like to listen. Remember, this is an audiobook post so comments qualify for the giveaway for this month.
Please watch this site for June audio book related posts, like this one. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
Since June began, every Monday we have had a Minnesota Author at the Library sponsored by our Friends Of The Library. I love these events as it is an author event that takes place three miles from my house, and it is a wonderful way to be able to listen to an author and hear about their writing and their books.
Two Mondays ago, June 9th, I missed Rhonda Foch’s, author of Minnesota Lost Town’s Northern Addition because I was at Camp. This Monday I missed Peter Geye, author of The Lighthouse Road because I was speaking instead at the same time for a local volunteer group about the Friends Of The Library, an opportunity I could not pass up… but really wanted to hear Peter. On the bright side, I was able to meet both authors before I ran to my other commitments.
I did manage to pick up both of their books at these events.
SO…. audio book month. I am having a BLAST and I hope you are too! I appreciate all the comments on the audio related posts and I really appreciate those of you who are dabbling in audio for the first time, or trying it again after perhaps unsuccessful attempts previously.
Please remember that all the audio book related posts this months have a giveaway for a $25 gift card to either Amazon or Barnes and Noble. To enter – just comment on the audio posts… one entry per comment. Here is a recap of all the audio book related posts so far:
Sunday! Remember that coffee drinking chick above? Well, she is back! BEA is over and the books are put away, the office move is complete, and Friday afternoon I returned from camp. It has been a full 4 weeks of MAJOR ACTIVITY, and now it will be nice to settle into more of a normal routine.
Ahhhhh….
Here are the books that made their way to my door this past week:
Deadlines. I have always been a bit of a procrastinator at heart. I always think things will take less time then they actually do. In my defense (look how defensive I am! 😀 ), many times I am right. I do not plan things out for months in advance and because of that here is where I am today. Literally TODAY.
My deadline for my bee article for Her Voice magazine is today. I have all my notes, I just need to write my 1200 word piece this afternoon. I meant to do this last weekend before camp… it never happened. Instead, as a true procrastinator would… I was working on camp paperwork and print out for camp in the last 48 hours prior to camp. 😳
Also… my deadline to put in for the Grant award from the Minnesota Library Association for best Friends of the Library project in 2013 is… you guessed it…. TODAY. This is where the EEP comes in. I am submitting Wine and Words as our “Yea we kicked book butt!” project. 🙂
Ok that is all. Right now I am procrastinating on getting ready for church. Gotta go… celebrating Fathers Day with our older son coming over for lunch today, and sadly this evening we have a wake to attend for a young man who worked for our company occasionally who was killed on a motorcycle this past week.
For today’s Saturday Snapshot I thought I would share with you where I have been this past week. I am on a Camp Board for a Camp called Camp Benedict. This camp is an educational camp for those infected and affected by AIDS. The camp is a family camp, which means we have men, women, and children at camp, and we have people who have obtained AIDS through many different ways:
Sex
Needles
Blood transfusions (before they tested blood back in the 80’s)
and yes, children born with AIDS
My connection to this camp and cause stems back 5 years, and you can read about it here. During the year we have a large event and a bike ride to raise money to provide camp for free to those who attend. The camp is the only one like it in a 6 state range.
Anyhoo… here are some of the pics from this past week:
This year was the 20th year of Camp Benedict!
Camp Benedict is an education camp and throughout the week there will be different speakers covering topics like- stigma, health, medications, laws, men’s groups and women’s groups.
We bring in experts on different topics and from different agencies to help answer questions.While the adults are in classes, the kids have their own things going on with Camp K staff. They also have their own classes where they learn about AIDS and about how to be supportive of their parent, aunt, uncle, grandparent, etc…The camp provided meals and snacks.
Of course camp is not all work and study – it is after all… camp. 🙂 From lunch time (noon) to 5:30 (dinner time) is free time and the camp provides water sports, horse back riding, massage, Reiki, pontoon rides, and a trip to the Dairy Queen. Or – you can do as I did… sit in the warm sun read a bit and take a nap 🙂
On the first day of camp we all wrote down words associated with what we thought when we first heard about AIDS. We put those words in a box and on the last evening of camp we burned those words.
On the last night we have a closing ceremony and then we have KARAOKE and a dance for all the campers. It was so fun to watch the little kids!
Our DJ this year was fantastic and she really provided fun things that involved all ages
Friendships are built in that week of camp. Jason has been to camp three times. It’s always great to see old friends and make new ones too!
It is tradition at camp that on the last day as the bus leaves the camp K staff builds a pyramid to wave off the campers.
The close of Camp Benedict 2014.
So why am I a part of this camp? I LOVE what it is doing. I love Connie Statz, the woman who bravely 20 years ago had an idea for a way to support others with AIDS and she ran with her vision and this that I just showed you – is the AMAZING result. I love working with this board of people all striving to encourage, support, and teach. And I love the campers, I enjoy getting to know people throughout the week, listening to their stories and knowing that I am helping to provide a good take-away from them hanging out at this beautiful camp.
Thanks everyone who serves on the Camp Benedict Board and Friends of Camp Benedict. Thanks to the camp staff, and of course to all the campers who travel from all over to have a week at a beautiful camp and hopefully leave with a great experience.
If you would like to support Camp Benedict, here is a link to my support page where I raise funds for the bike ride in August which goes directly to the camp.
Be sure to check out other Saturday Snaphot posts ans see what everyone else is taking pictures of this week 😀
I’m up. I have been up since 5:44 am, because I thought it was 6:44 am and this is the last day of camp.
Today we will have breakfast together, share a morning session of introducing someone else from camp and what we have learned about them, then we will pack up and at noon, say our good byes.
Camp Benedict 2014 will be officially over.
I will chat a bit more about camp tomorrow with Saturday Snapshot but for now… in my tired state and the bitter-sweet moments of “Yay! I can go back home to my house, my dogs, my husband, and my bed!” to…
“it is over… and now I have to say good-bye to some amazing people whose paths I may or may not cross again.”
In a side topic, it is audiobook month and this week I have really listened to close to nothing. I don’t have a lot of alone time at camp as you can imagine and audio almost always required alone time. 😀 I did have a 10 minute session one afternoon while I was alone in my cabin washing my hair listening to Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Wood. Narrated by Kate Reading. It is awesome.
As far as other listening to it… it has been crickets, and birds, frogs and laughter, music and silence… and that…
is ok.
Just a reminder:
Please watch this site (Book Journey) for June audio book related posts. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
It’s true. It is that time of year of gardening, lawn care, house cleaning, being outside, walking, running, biking, cabin, projects, grilling…
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
Book Journey 