Good morning! Popping in to let you know that a few books hit the mailbox and doorstep this past week…
There are some amazing titles here I can not wait to sink into!
I am off to get ready for church now but this afternoon this will be the project:
Scary right? 😯 I bought a better treadmill for running. Now I just have to put it together.. 🙂
Good morning! Hope you are all having a wonderful start to your weekend. I am enjoying coffee that my cousin brought over. mmmmmmm
A few weeks ago I had went to our cabin with friends for a weekend of celebrating my friend Sheila’s birthday. It was the weekend that we went dog sledding – and this is the rest of the story of that weekend for this weekends Saturday Snapshot. (Check out other peoples pics at this link)
First up – gamers. I love board games and the new one I bought up for the weekend was Quelf. This is a great party game! There are cards like STUNTZ where if you draw a STUNTZ card you may be told to do something like “set the timer and find three things you would find in a first aid kit before the time runs out”…. or it may ask you to hum the star spangled banner. Many of the STUNTZ cards will have bonus points for the rest of the players if they react or do something that plays into your STUNTZ card.
QUIZZLE cards: Trivia cards from hilarious to impossible… or so you think 😉
ROOLZ cards: follow the ROOLZ on the card – if you do not, pay the penalty
SCATTERBRAINZ cards: gets everyone shouting , but you must stay on task!
SHOWBIZ cards: You are in the spotlight… shine baby shine – do what the card says 🙂
We had a blast with this game! Laughing so hard we were crying.
Then… that Sunday morning the plan was I was going to leave earlier than the girls as I had to be back in Brainerd, drop the dog off and go to a work retreat that afternoon. In order for me to do that successfully my plan was to leave at 10 am. I loaded my car with all my goodies – used my super cool electric starter to warm it up, threw my purse and keys in the passenger seat and went in to tell everyone good-bye.
When I went back out to my car to go – it was locked. My keys were inside. I was in Finland Minnesota… on a Sunday morning, no idea who to call, and my phone as well as my jacket, purse, and KEYS, were all inside the car. 😯
Thank God for friends to the rescue. While I was knocking on doors at the neighbor’s house, Farrah jumped on her phone and found me a guy out of a town near by who would come in about 30 minutes. It was closer to 45 minutes, but he did arrive.
As all good friends would do… they took pictures from inside the house of our progress of getting the car unlocked. 😛
I was late to my retreat in Crosslake Minnesota, but only by about 15 minutes. I made up time by not stopping on my way home at all and dropped the dog off quickly. It was about a 5 hour drive total from the North Shore to Crosslake. 😀
Good morning… late morning but morning all the same. Honestly… I just want to read today but have a pretty full afternoon and possibly a dinner and movie thing with the hubby tonight.
Which reminds me…
♥Happy Valentines Day!♥
I have a winner to draw for the Literary Blog Hop that I participated in this past weekend. Using random.org the winner is:
Woo hoo! Give it up for Helen!!!! YAY! She already mentioned in her comment she would love a copy or Orphan Train so that is what will be sent to her 🙂
I also had a bonus give away for my birthday, a $10 Amazon gift card. This one was for the awesome people who searched out my Easter Egg on the blogs and found it at Always With A Book (thank you Kristin for keeping the egg for me 😀 )
Way to go Earl – I will email that card out to you hopefully some time today.
There it is… I have a review coming up later… hope you will stop by and see what I have to say.
In Winters past I have spent the slower months of the year watching all the seasons of The Gilmore Girls in the cool evenings. This was a tradition I loved, steeping myself with hot cups of tea while watching the fast paced dynamic duo of Lorelai and Rory. The coffee swigging mom and the bookish references made the show even more enduring to me. Oh how I longed to live in Star Hallow.
And then…. this year I was introduced to the Walking Dead by so-called friends (oh you know who you are…. 😉 ) A crazy zombie show that I thought I would never get into and then there I was buying all three seasons at the Thanksgiving Day sale and then proceeding to devour them with my husband… fully immersed in a story line of survival in the craziest of circumstances.
But oh no…. the three seasons were watched quickly and by the end of January it was still full on winter here in Minnesota and my evening fix was gone…. so I moved on to something more hard-core…
Breaking Bad.
Yes yes you goof ball people who said “It’s amazing!” as I shook my head furiously and responded, “It is a show about making meth? How can that be awesome?” Yet, in a desperate move for something interesting to watch last week Al and I pulled up the first season episode one on Netflix and wow…. a teacher who makes and sells meth to earn money for his cancer treatments and to provide for his family….
we are addicted.
I feel I am now ruined for all things cutesy and sweet. Now I am hard-core zombies and meth. 😯
Seriously…. who am I?
Spring can not come soon enough… clearly I need to get out of the house.
Picture this.
Hair in my eyes, sleep pants and slip on sandals (I know… I know…), face still sleep lined but smile intact.
😀
That’s what the night after book club looks like.
Always.
After an evening of sharing food together, discussing the book, a glass of wine (or two), choosing the next book and just hanging out with a great group of girls…I always come home spent.
BUT in such a good way.
I marvel at this motley crew of girls from different backgrounds, assorted ages… and we all gather in a room and we send a book through the process of well.. whatever we do with it… love it – hate it – in between. Together we have shared tears, laughter, anger… but the cool thing is –
we genuinely care about one another.
AND THAT…
is the BEST part of Bookies. 😀
We reviewed Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. I knew it would be a great discussion. And afterwards we decided to use our book in the bag money we collected (A library program where ten copies of the same book are checked out at once for groups) and purchase Me Before You so other groups can discuss this one as well.
Next up… Secret Life Of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. An older title but I do not believe any of us have read it yet.
On another completely (COMPLETELY) random note – I bought a Modern Family calendar in January. I bought is because I LOVE the show and they are so funny… I have been meaning to put the quote each day up here and I forget. I will put today’s up now – and if you do not get it – you MUST watch the show…. even if you do get it – you must watch the show. Hilarious 😀
Claire: Nothing from the mini-bar, and no pay-per-view
Manny: Can we at least –
Claire: No, you can not send things out for pressing.
Have an AWESOME start to your day 😀
Good morning! I am back… or still here. Or something like that. 😀 The weekend was busy – good busy….
Today – briefly as the clock is a ticking…. I wanted to tell you that if you are not subscribed to Blogger Recommended you should be. This is a monthly newsletter/email by some of the amazing book bloggers out there giving you a heads up on what is coming out in the next month and what they fell is going to be HOT HOT HOT!
I am thrilled (SQQQUUUEEEEE) to be a part of this group and I do hope you will check it out. I am currently working on finding ways to bring this newsletter into the libraries and book stores around the country so if you have any connections or ideas, please chat with me 😀
In the meantime… .check out the current issue:
That’s what I have for today. Tonight is book club and I am excited to see the Bookies and discuss, Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. 😀
So it is Saturday! *yay yay people applauding and dancing in the streets* Saturdays are my ABSOLUTE favorite day of the week 🙂 They are usually the only day I have where I choose what I do with my day without any “have to’s”. Love that.
In honor of this weeks Saturday Snapshot, I thought I would share with you a little visual story for (hopefully) your enjoyment.
Back story: This Sunday is my birthday.
So…. yesterday I meet my dear friend Gail for coffee at Cocoa Moon. Great name for a coffee shop right? 😀 Gail has brought me a beautiful gift bag for my birthday. We have coffee… we chat books, life, the strange dude who keeps peering through the window of the coffee shop at us, and weekend plans.
Gail asks me to open my gift.
*SQQQUUEEEE! I thought she would never ask!*
I start with the top tissue layer and in that is…
Ok…. YUM!
Then I unwrap the next layer of tissue and….
Shut the back door! Wine sleep pants! AWESOME! (Gail is my co-chair for Wine and Words)
So I have wine pants…. I unwrap the final tissue layer and….
Here are the words! A BEAUTIFUL copy of Gone With The Wind in a nice hard case.
Gone With The Wind is one of Gail’s all time favorite books. She knows I have never read it. (don’t look so shocked…. I have said this before 😯 ) The gift all goes together, I am supposed to get comfy in the sleep pants and enjoy the tasty goodies while curled up with Gone With The Wind.
Gift or Entrapment? I think… a little of both – but in a good way. 😀 Now that I have a lovely copy of Gone With The Wind I do want to stick my nose in it. And yes, possibly while wearing the pants and having the chocolate… maybe… just maybe….
Ok ok… I will put this book into action and will read Gone With The Wind in 2014. It is written. 😉 Thanks Gail!
See other Saturday Snapshots here
Today I am meeting my College Son who wants to hang out for the day in ST Cloud together for my birthday. He is taking me to lunch and Barnes and Noble, and maybe a movie. 😀 I haven’t seen him since Christmas so this is exciting!
Oh! And if you have not seen my super fun and awesome giveaway that ties in with the blog hop going on now with a bonus birthday opportunity from me, please checkout my post about that … I think you will be excited about what I am offering!
Have a SUPER Saturday!
Good morning! Friday! Lots of good adventures coming today and throughout the weekend and I am sitting here with COFFEE CUP on the cusp of my day but instead… doing nothing. 🙂
It will get busy soon. 😉
My regular readers know we have three dogs. I did not mean to have three dogs. Two years ago we were down to just Bailey, our now 16-year-old shih tzu. Then Sammy (estimated at the time to be a year and a half) came along in April 2012… a stray, abandoned, unwanted cute as a button and homeless and we took him in. Three months later we rescued Mater, an abused Beagle/Basset hound, about 4 months old and in need of a “forever home”.
It’s funny because while they can be really fun they are also a real handful. For instance, there is no such thing as giving one of them a taste of whatever you are eating… IE a burger or popcorn. Nope, that is three faces looking up at you so everything is three tastes. On the bright side… I think I may eat less 😀
Just this week I was going to give them a bone. I buy these real meat bones from the meat department at our grocery store. They like them a lot and the vet says it is good for their teeth. I realized I only had two bones left in the package I had bought. Two bones… three dogs. I had some rawhide bones too so I gave Sammy and Mater the real bones, and gave Bailey, who doesn’t have as many teeth as the younger ones, a rawhide bone.
I am not proud of what I did. 😯
Well, it was like having three children and one received something different. Bailey looked at the other bones… then at his. Then…
at me.
I felt like poo.
Thankfully I dug around in the refrigerator and did find another lone bone from another package that I was saving because I did not have enough to give all of them. Lesson learned. I need three of everything. 😀
In about 45 minutes I have coffee with a friend, then a meeting at the library, followed by a few errands to run and ending up at the gym by early afternoon. Book review up later and later yet… a fun kickoff tot he weekend post you will not want to miss. 😀
How is your weekend shaping up? Any plans?
Good morning! On Tuesday evening of this week the Bookies who read the book Labor Day by Joyce Maynard gathered for a pre-movie gathering at a local Mexican restaurant for appetizers. 13 of us attended and that was a lot of fun!
We called ourselves (ok..ok, I named them) the Labor Day Thirteen. We were sent 10 tickets to go and celebrate the movie and we all pitched in a couple of dollars to include to buy the three additional tickets.
It was so much fun to hang out as a group! We practically owned the theater when we arrived, so we thought we were rock stars! Then a couple came in…. they must have wondered what such a big group was doing.
We had a blast and really enjoyed the movie. As we left the theater we excitedly chatted about book vs. movie, what we liked better in the book, what we liked better in the movie… what shocked us (of yeah – there was a shocker in the movie that left us as one voice gasping). No spoiler. 😉
Later I will put up my movie review.
Thank you so much to Harper Collins for this amazing opportunity to read the book as a group, grab some snacks, and see the movie together. 🙂
On another note…. our Libraries Blind Date event is going well. One of the ladies who works there sent me an email last night asking what I thought about adding the book “The Girl You Left Behind” by Jojo Moyes. She asked for my help writing the singles ad (see what I mean here). I have not read this book yet so am asking if any of you have and if you could comment with an idea of what the ad could say. 🙂
Good morning! I feel rather wiped out today. It was a busy day yesterday and perhaps the emotional pull this introvert has while engaging with two fairly large groups all afternoon and evening is taking its energy pull.
Zapped is a good way to describe me right now. 😀
Anyhoo…
the date.
A couple of weeks ago you the awesome readers of Book Journey helped me with “singles ads” for the Blind Date event we were planning. The ideas flew in and it was so much fun to read them and laugh at how witty you all are! 😀
Yesterday we kicked off the Blind Date event at the library. 52 books were put under pretty wraps and given a little singles ad blurb to possibly entice a reader to choose them.
I was in the library during the later afternoon assisting in planning for our Annual Meeting for the Friends group so I was able to witness the activity around the display. I enjoyed going and talking with people who were looking over the books explaining that they checked out a book that appealed to them, read it, fill out the “Rate Your Date” card that is tucked inside and return both. While I was watching about 8 f these books checked out.
I checked out one as well. Although I helped with the cards that went on the book packaging I could not recall but a few of what book they were… I chose one instead that I felt fit me…
Last night, after coming home and feeling wiped out, I left “my date” in the car overnight. 😛 This morning I allowed him/her into the house and opened up the packaging…
Here is my date! I have read Lisa Scottoline before, but not this one. The singles add promising me kooky and uplifting “chick wit” and a glass of wine sold me. We shall see how our date goes….
stay tuned.
When I wrote that original Blind Date post and asked you all to help me with the singles adds for books I also offered up a gift card to one awesome participant. That winner of the $10 Amazon Gift Card is bookebelle0819 – #80 in the comments using random.org. Congrats! I will send that out by email!
Tonight, many of the Bookies Book Club will meet up for appetizers and then off to see the movie Labor Day as a group from our win of books and tickets. We are excited! I love the little extras we are able to do together 😀
Book Journey 