Morning Meanderings – Page 46

Happy New Year! 1st Book Of The Year!

Published on January 1, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)113 Comments

Happy New Year everyone! 2014!!! AWESOME!!!

This is the first book of the year post and I have to say how excited I was to see that over 80 other book lovers signed on to either write a post about their first book of the year, send a picture of the first book they will be reading, or both! As pictures came in from all over the world I loved seeing the first book choices! The enthusiasm of readers in contagious!

The following are the pictures sent in from bloggers and book lovers you may very well know. Later when I get home from that first run of the year (WOO WOO!) I will add the blog names below, unfortunately I just ran out of time this morning after hanging out with friends last night and getting home after midnight. 😉

In the meantime, check their posts out by seeing who linked up their First Book Of The Year post – and if it was you who wrote one, please add yours to the linky below the pics where it says click here. When I get home I will be happy to check out your posts!

*Please note, if I missed your picture let me know – the collages auto fill and I hope everyone was captured. I know I had one picture sent to me I could not open so if a few more trickle in today I will add then later. 😀

Thanks everyone for participating and LOVE the book choices. You can now (if you can find me in the collage 😉 ) see that I am starting the year with V C Andrews, Flowers In The Attic. I read this as probably a “tween”. It was a great read then, and now it has been re-released with a sweet new cover. Right now, I am leaving to do my first 5K of the year, The Polar Dash in St Paul Minnesota. Late this afternoon though, I will be curled up with this book. 🙂

Happy New Year everyone!!!!! Share what your first book of the year is going to be either by creating a post and linking it here or by telling me in the comments 🙂

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Morning Meanderings.. Books coming into the New Year

Published on December 31, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)15 Comments

Good morning! I am drinking COFFEE! Yes, COFFEE. Why the big deal? I After being sick I didn’t touch coffee for 5 days. Finally (Finally!) my tummy is ready to handle it again… so yeah! YAY!

This is the post I wanted to put up Sunday morning and then didn’t so instead… here are some items that came in the mail this past week that are book room worthy:

10 copies of Labor Day by Joyce Maynard came for my book club! We won a contest along with other book clubs to read the book, and then they are sending us movie tickets to see the movie and a $100 gift card to buy some goodies for our get together. How super fun is that? Way cool Harper Collins!!!

I won this fun pack of swag and this awesome looking read!

…and a couple other fun reads and Evertrue is a win from Me, My Shelf, and I

Oh yes, and books came my way as well. Ahhhh…. just looking at them brings up visions of blankets and reading in this cool Minnesota weather.

And as this in New Years Eve (I know right??? How did that happen?) I have to share the Challenge I am joining that I thought would be fun (its one I need to do anyway as some EPIC last in the series reads are coming out this year! Now I am not so organized that I can name the ones for sure other than the last book in the Mortal Instrument Series *sigh*and…well you get the point.

And it is the last to sign up and get in on the fun that the First Book Of The Year is going to bring. I am soooo excited about this! We now have over 80 book lovers signed up to participate in showing off the book they will be reading to kick off the New Year! It’s easy, there are no trap doors or hoops to jump through, I just think it is super cool to see up reading all over the world! I will announce my first book of the year in the morning. 🙂

You may still sign up here:

and then a final plug for The WHERE Are You Reading Challenge... always a good time… and seriously, who doesn’t like to travel? And if not in a plane, then from the comfort of your chair?

That is all. 🙂 I work today, and not sure what we are doing tonight yet but I think laying low may be the plan. I leave early in the morning for the first run of the year in the cities. 🙂

Morning Meanderings… Christmas At The DeChantals -a lot of fun… a little sick

Published on December 26, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)27 Comments

Mmmmmm good morning all. I hope you all survived the holiday. We had the best one here, for the first time in 4 years both boys were home. We hung out all day yesterday, opened gifts in the morning, watched movies, ate ham and goodies, snowmobiled and enjoyed each others company. I have been looking forward to this for months.

And I was sick. 😦

Mmmm hmmmm. I felt myself getting a little tingly in the morning while we opened gifts. I only ate a little bit of the dinner hoping it would pass. When they went snowmobiling I caught a quick nap hoping it would pass. No such luck. I ached, I was cold, could not get comfortable. Our tradition is that Justin and I stay up late and watch Harry Potter movies. By 9:30 pm and after my third bought of throwing up – I had to give up. Justin went to hang out with friends and I went to bed.

Crap.

On the upside… I feel good today. I am drinking tea this morning, taking it easy and not rushing back into the straight coffee just yet. When Justin gets up we will resume out Harry Potter tradition, we are late but we are not defeated. I have today with him before he will leave to go back to Mankato tomorrow morning. 🙂

We did (sickness aside) have a beautiful Christmas. Justin is starting a fund for his move to Oregon after he graduates in May so we got him a piggy bank that keeps track of how much is in it and gave him a bit of a start to his savings. Brad received a nice gift card to Walmart and they both received the usual things we get them – socks, Axe kits (deodorant, shampoo, body wash, spray all in a kit), Brad received a t-shirt of Breaking Bad and Justin a book as he is my reader buddy. 🙂

Al received a nice hoodie, gloves, new jeans, t-shirt and Justin gave us a nice gift certificate to Olive Garden and Brad gave us surround sound for our TV and hooked it up for us.

I received an awesome candle, chocolates, a cool sign that spell out in large Scrabble letters R E A D and my hubby gave me a gift certificate to have an automatic starter put in my new vehicle so I can start it while I am still in my office at work on these cold winter days. And of course, The Monster Series runs which the first one is next Wednesday.

This morning the house is quiet. I am going to read a few blogs and listen to a little audio before things take off here. Enjoy your Thursday everyone. 🙂 Next up…. New Years!

Morning Meanderings…. Twas The Sunday Before Christmas…

Published on December 22, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)20 Comments

Sunday is here. How ya’ all doing?

Time: 8:15 am (funny that is exactly the same time I wrote this last week)

Place: The recliner again… its cozy.

Eating/Drinking: Just hazelnut coffee so far this morning

Reading: Pffff. Books? Haven’t really had time to pick up a book this week.

Listening to: Out of the three I had going last week, I am still listening to Parkland but will finish that one soon. I just finished up Me Before You yesterday and now need to download another audio today from audible…. suggestions?

Blogging – staying steady. I am catching up on the reviews I had not written, and have been consistent on the Morning Meanderings

Happenings…. I listed about ten items on a couple local Facebook “garage sale” type sites and caused a bit of a feeding frenzy over a couple of them last night…. now I have a bit of anxiety as I need to connect with people now to either have the items picked up or meet up with them somewhere to complete the transaction. A couple of them have questions on items that I need to answer this morning yet.

Anticipating: Christmas. I am really looking forward to the boys being here and just hanging out with them.

Hating: I feel behind and I don’t like that. Today I need to finish up shopping for Christmas (food included) because the next two days I am working pretty much 12 hour shifts to have the rest of the week off from Wednesday on (also causing me anxiety)

Loving: That I did make a dent yesterday – gifts are wrapped, tree is up. I am making progress. 🙂

Ok as I wrap up here after about 15 minutes of distractedness between Audible.com and Facebook I (its easy to get sucked into the time suck that is Facebook!)have downloaded Tell The Wolves I Am Home which I am pretty excited about. Let the Listening begin!

Morning Meanderings… Sprint Apocalypse and Giving Back

Published on December 21, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)20 Comments

Happy Saturday! So many little things to do but this morning… I am chilling with my Coffee Cup, listening to Me Before You and trying not to think too hard about all I need to do this weekend. 🙂

Yesterday our local Sprint Towers were down (they still may be – I have not tried my phone yet today). You wouldn’t think not having a cell phone for a day would be a big deal… good grief, I grew up in the 80’s and we were thrown to the streets as teenagers… with no means of communication! *Gasp!* How did we survive???? But yesterday was a hot mess without the use of my phone and here is what happened:

We have no house phone
I had to get a hold of my husband and my calls and texts wouldn’t go through (I eventually drove to where he was at)
There was a brunch at my house with friends and when they called me I could not be heard by them on the phone
I was supposed to meet a friend up town and we were going to connect (by phone!) when we could meet and that did not happen
Another friend and I had a coffee date, when she called to cancel – I never got the message
I was expecting some important papers in the mail this week and when they fad not arrived by yesterday I could not call the company to inquire.

A day without my phone as active as this time of year was annoying. I had to drive into Sprint to find out what was going on.. they said, “we have had a lot of calls today” and I responded, “If only I could have called you…”

It really was like the Apocalypse.

For Saturday Snapshot I thought I would bring up some pics from this fall when we had a food drive for our local food shelf. It seems like an appropriate time of year to do a little post on giving. 🙂

They weighed the food and I can not remember the exact total but I believe it was over 1500 pound of food we donated that day to the Food Shelf to give out to those in need. We did this as a Church, but really any group (or family) could do this. I think I am going to bring this up to my book club, maybe next year we could pick a month where we each fill a bag to be donated. I love it when as a group we go beyond the books.

So that is my Saturday Snapshot today – hope your day is wonderfully stress free…. I have to ask… are you done Christmas shopping?

Morning Meanderings… It Is A Small World

Published on December 20, 2013December 20, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)17 Comments

Friday! There is a happy dance going on here! Almost like a starting line really as I have not even put our tree up yet. I know right? Life gets busy and I well.. yeah. Today’s the day. I am also not done Christmas shopping… but between today and tomorrow… I plan to be. 🙂

Recently (yesterday) I won a copy of the upcoming gorgeous looking book, Evertrue from Amber at Me, My Shelf, and I. When Amber emailed me for my address and I responded back, she emailed me this:

Shut up. I could drive this to you!

Turns out, Amber lives about two hours from me in Minnesota. 🙂 I love that!

I also recently had a win of a bookish ornament from Ashley at Papyrusaurus that arrived in the mail yesterday. How cute is this:

This morning I am having brunch here at the house with three great friends. We will do our little Christmas exchange and hang out over great coffee and conversation. Then this afternoon I have coffee with another friend, and then tonight we attend an annual Christmas party of friends. In between all of that, I will be trying out a couple of caramel variations off my recipe and maybe… maybe a little shopping.

Hope this start to your weekend is wonderful!

Oh – and I have two giveaways going on – dont miss out:

Platform 21 book

Percy Jackson Sea Of Monsters DVD

Morning Meanderings… An Old Post Keeps Picking Up Traffic (ooh – and a giveaway!)

Published on December 19, 2013December 19, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)21 Comments

Good Morning! How ya all doing this morning? I am just back from the gym and that makes me happy. I feel as though I have accomplished something positive when I start my day out that way. 🙂

For those of us who have been blogging books for a while, do you ever see a post you wrote a long time continue to get hits? Not only hits, but discussion? That’s the may my Lightning Thief Movie Spoiler Page has been.

At first when I seen in my email that post was receiving traffic I figures it was spam. After all, I wrote this post in early 2010. However, upon closer look – no, they are still commenting – still fired up by the differences of the book to the movie. Isn’t is funny how us book lovers get all worked up about movies changing our books? 🙂

Lightning Thief as a book was really good. Way to go Rick Riordan! *knuckle bump* And Lightning Thief the movie was really good. If you read the book AND seen the movie..well, thus the spoiler post.

I have been curious for some time now if they were going to do another movie. There are after all, there are after all 5 books in this series (my College son loved them!). So super funny and coincidental that I was contemplating this post, when yesterday I was offered by Think Jam Digital to have a giveaway here for a Blue Ray bundle of The Sea Of Monsters DVD (2nd book in the series). This DVD has just been released to the public for sale – but here, you can sign up to win the movie as a well as a companion comic book. Kind of a sweet deal, and I admit – I am curious about this movie.

Enter for a chance to win the Percy Jackson Sea Of Monsters Blu-ray Combo Pack and exclusive Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Sea Of Monsters comic book!

Synopsis

The magical, mythical adventures of teenager Percy Jackson — son of the Greek god Poseidon — continue in this heroic, action-packed thrill ride! Out to prove he’s not just a “one-quest wonder,” Percy and his demigod friends embark on an epic, cross-country journey into the treacherous Sea of Monsters, where they battle terrifying creatures, an army of zombies, and the ultimate evil. With time running out, Percy must find and bring home the fabled Golden Fleece, which has the power to save his world…and save us all!

Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters 3D Blu-ray Deluxe Edition,

available on Blu-ray and DVD December 17

For a chance to win your copy of the Blu-ray, just answer the question below:

Percy Jackson is the son of which of the Greek Gods?

Poseidon

Zeus

Hades

I will post a winner on Sunday morning – December 22nd.

Be sure to follow Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment on Twitter @FoxHomeEnt for the latest Blu-ray & DVD releases

I am curious, have you read any of the Rick Riordan books? I admit, I have only read the first one as of this time.

Morning Meanderings….Every Library Needs Friends

Published on December 18, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)11 Comments

Good morning everyone! Midway through the week already! I don’t know if I should be thrilled or panicked! 😀 Next week we as a staff have made the decision to put all of our hours and efforts into Monday and Tuesday and then we are going to close the office the rest of the week, probably working close to 12 hours each of those two days. That means, I need to be ready for Christmas by Sunday night. EEP!

Recently I had written a post about helping out with the Christmas decorating at our Local Library. As a Friend of The Brainerd Public Library, we have our own decorations and we set up trees and lights, and wreaths and jazzed the place up the first part of December. Someone at that time had commented that they did not know the friends did that – and while I am sure all Libraries are not the same, and all friends groups do not function the same… I wanted to put a plug in for joining. 😀

As books, (probably obviously…)are a big part of my life – I naturally wanted to be involved in my local Library. When I signed up as a friend I really did not know what they did. Two years later – I am still learning. 😀

The Friends Groups are a group that supports the library through fundraising efforts and we assist the library with purchases an needs that are not necessarily covered by the libraries budget. As Dawn in our Friends group put it, we are the icing on the cake. Our money raised goes for the little extras – our group personally helps with movie licensing so movies can be checked out at the library, we purchase additional copies of best-selling books (if you are from the area – when you walk in the library and see that white stand to the right that is our contribution of best sellers and these books and audio do not go on the wait list – if you are lucky and pop in at the right time you may find that coveted book!). We assist in bringing authors in to the library (during June we bring in a Minnesota author each Monday), we assist in reading programs for children, the holiday open house and so much more. We have two used book sales a year, and this past year added the Wine and Words event that was soooo fun we plan to do it yearly (mark your calendars – August 22, 2014). This year we also have been working with a group of Teenagers to try to get books in their lives and create venues from their perspectives to make the teen area of our library something incredible.

My point in sharing this today is that I encourage you – Lover Of Books ( I say this in my best Narnia “Daughters Of Eve” voice) to inquire at your library about a friends group. There is a yearly fee – ours is $5. This goes directly into supporting our library and gives you the keys to the adventures of the Friends. I can’t speak for all friends groups but I have seen some pretty amazing ones out there and have to say ours I believe is pretty awesome as well.

There it is. My friends plug. 😀 Have a super day – I have a full one! If you have any questions about Friends groups please ask – if I dont know the answer I will try hard to find out! If you are a Friend of your library, I would love to hear about the things that you do!

Morning Meanderings… Merry Christmas to me the KOBO has arrived!

Published on December 17, 2013December 17, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)19 Comments

Happy Tuesday ya’ all! The fact that you are reading this means that we all survived Monday! WOO HOO!

I had to share this morning that my KOBO win from Alison’s contest she had has arrived. I am super excited to give it a try and am downloading the information now as I type to activate this baby! 😀

**Not sure what is up with the “fuzzy” picture my camera is taking… lighting maybe?**

I love the size of it. It looks to be about 7 inches tall and 5 inches wide. A great size to slip in my purse! I already ordered a little case for it to protect it.

In other news I have been a baking fool…. I have made so many batches of caramels that they are everywhere…. and tonight I plan to make 3 double batches more. Tomorrow is our office staff party and along with a suet holder and homemade suet for the birds (thanks Leslie for that recipe!) that is my gift of the year. I have another gathering Friday morning, and a few gifts to drop off Friday afternoon as well as a Christmas Party Friday night. *whew* Tis the season…

Anyhoo… next question is.. what to download first on that KOBO?

Ok… must get ready for work! Have an awesome day everyone!

Morning Meandering… Sunday Update with Book Suggestions

Published on December 15, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)24 Comments

Happy Sunday! I have about 45 minutes before I get ready for church but enjoy doing this Sunday post so here we go. 😀

Time: 8:15 am

Place: That recliner I love so much in the living room

Eating/Drinking: a mocha coffee in the Tossimo coffee pot. No food yet…

Reading: Starting Platform 21 by T R Patrick

Listening to: Array of awesomeness…. Red Hill by Jamie McGuire (you will see why below) and Parkland by Vincent Bugliosi (listening to this one in the car and it is powerful!)

Blogging: Like a mad woman. I suddenly realized that due to my “hiatus” earlier this year I may not finish my reading goal of 100 books this year. I have many books I have read but nor reviewed yet… I know it is not a big deal… just the competitor in me. 😛

Anticipating: Coming home this afternoon, I am making homemade caramels and want to document it for my :Weekend Cooking” post yes, with recipe 😀

Hating: That the weekend is almost over. I could use another day or two… it has been awesome.

Loving: That both boys will be home for Christmas this year and unlike Thanksgiving, we will not have to run around but instead just hang out here surrounded by good food, movies and board games. 😀

In other news, I found a few interesting reads while I was blog reading this week. Normally I post these earlier in the week but every day I had something to chat about and did not do it… so here it is now:

Carrie over at Books and Movies posted this review of Red Hill and I was instantly engaged… so much so, it is what I am listening to now.

Girl XOXO had a new title to me, Snow White Must Die. It sounds interesting.

Book’d Out posted about The Recipe Box which sounds like my kind of read.

Lakeside Musings post on Tell The Wolves I Am Home and I am for sure going to read this one!

That’s it. Hope your day is wonderful. 😀 Are you doing anything fun today? Decorating? Shopping? Baking? Curled up with a book or audio?