Morning Meanderings – Page 47

Morning Meanderings… Holiday “Bookin It!”

Published on December 14, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)78 Comments

Good morning! Happy Saturday! It is for me as the commitments today are low (WOO HOO!!!)

Yesterday I spent a little time on projects that I have put off for a while. One was cleaning out the freezer (always a delightful task) and the other was putting a little love into the book room. Let’s just say that the books that I bought mid August from the library sale were still in the room in the box I brought them home in.

With a little help from my audio friends, Eleanor and Park I went to work. Here are the pictures that I am putting up for Saturday Snapshot this week of the results of that project:

**This is as you walk into the room. Note – the table is a new addition. This is the table from the demolition Al did last month. It is a gorgeous piece that I plan on refinishing in the spring.**

**Here is a close up of the table. Oh and my rug… I love my rug too 🙂**

**And this is the room from the other end facing back towards the door (which you can see open on the right).**

The room, that used to be two bedrooms when I grew up here, and then was Al’s office until we built on to the shop, became a book room about 7 years ago. It used to be an assortment of book shelves but last fall we had a friend of ours put wall to wall shelves in the room and wala! Here we are.

Next Friday I am having friends over for a Christmas brunch and I think we will sit in there! 😀

For today, this morning I am off to the gym with my friend Kate who makes me go when “I don’t want to!” but it is a good thing. 😀 This afternoon my project is to get started on making caramels for our office staff. Our Christmas party is Wednesday and I think this will be a fun gift… I will post pictures! 😀

Have a great Saturday! Oh and check out Saturday Snapshot!

Morning Meanderings… Sustaining

Published on December 13, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)19 Comments

Good morning! Happy Friday. I am thrilled to be at the end of another week with no major “to do’s” over the next few days.

Earlier this week I was looking at my blog dashboard at the posts that have received the most comments. I randomly chose a book discussion from 2010 and clicked on the links to those who had left comments. I was pleased to see that many of them were still active bloggers. Sure there were several that were no longer blogging, and if you are a long term blogger you probably know at least one or two that you used to read that no longer are active.

I think what I enjoyed most about this little “travel back in blog time” was how many blogs I was able to revisit years later and find them still talking books. It made me realize that we are still a strong force of book lovers. I love knowing that. It re energizes me to see us out there doing what we love… talking books. 😀

I may get a little shopping done this weekend for Christmas, I need to spend a little time in the book room too doing a little reorganizing. Maybe those pics will be my Saturday post.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Friday and you are all taking this holiday time with stride and joy!

Below are a few challenges I am hosting going into the New Year. Click the picture to check them out. 😀

Morning Meanderings…. The Bookies Christmas

Published on December 12, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)14 Comments

Good morning! This post was supposed to go up yesterday morning but I over slept, missed my morning work out and by the time I prepped the pictures it was time for me to get read for work.

Ahhhh… the best laid plans…

Tuesday was our Annual Christmas party for the Bookies. Along with our review of The Christmas Grandma Ran Away From Home by Nancy Warren, we had a fun home made gift exchange.

Review first…. “meh”. I will not be doing a full review here as I did not read it. We accidentally chose a book that was an e read only and when I heard it was only 45 pages I thought I would read it a few days before our meeting… and then…. life happened, busy with other things and I did not get it done. Shortest book in Bookies 12 year history and I do not finish. 😯 For those that did read it they said it had many holes and felt unfinished. It wasn’t a bad read, just not great although those with busy loves like me were grateful that it was such a quick book.

The gift exchange was a lot of fun. We have always done a gift exchange but this year we added the twist of it having to be homemade. Insert *gulp* here. While not a crafty person really, I did come through in a inch with the Christmas bulbs filled with snowflakes from the Same Sweet Girls book and my first attempt at homemade caramels which came out AWESOME! 😀

Below you will see what everyone wound up with:

The pic of me is me wearing my gift (SCORE!) It is a nice thick knitted head band that covers my head and ears – great for outdoors. LOVE IT!!!!

IN fact… I love it so much…. I wore it to work on Wednesday:

Morning Meanderings… The Day Of The Bookies Christmas Party!

Published on December 10, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)21 Comments

Good morning! How ya all doing this fine Tuesday? I have been up and at the gym and home to my coffee and a quick post to you. Tonight is our December book club meeting and Christmas party… always a good time!

This year, we decided for our gift exchange that we had to make home-made gifts. 😯 In true fashion, I have procrastinated on this until last night when I finally realized what I wanted to do was not going to happen so I went a completely different route. Instead I made these:

I took one of our book clubs favorite reads through the years Same Sweet Girls by Cassandra King, and snowflake punched several pages. I then put the flakes into the little Christmas bulbs here and decorated with ribbon. Same Sweet Girls is the book that created our July Queen event… plus, we as the Bookies, really are the same sweet girls. If time allows, I plan to try my hand later this afternoon at homemade caramels to “sweeten” the deal…. get it? Sweeten? 😛

So hopefully none of the girls attending tonight read this post today as our gifts will be brown paper wrapped and we roll dice to see who gets what…. excited to see how it goes!

Are you in a book club?

If you are, do you do anything special for the holidays?

Sunday… Walking Dead, Catching Fire… my it is an active life

Published on December 8, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)16 Comments

Good Morning! I have not put together one of these posts in a while but each week I admire the way at Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness writes up her Sunday post so thought I would take a bit of direction from her.

Time: 8:33 am

Place: The comfy recliner in our living room with my favorite blanket

Consuming: So far just coffee but an egg white omelet is calling my name

Watching: I am deeply involved (ADDICTED!) to The Walking Dead. I know.. I know… I never dreamed I would like such a show. My friends have raved about it to the point that I picked up the first three seasons on the Thanksgiving weekend sales. Now, half way through season two.. I have to say it is keeping me up at night watching.

Reading: ugh… I am just starting a book, All That You Could Ask For, that I meant to start yesterday but time did not allow. What I should be reading is our book club book that we will discuss on Tuesday.

Listening to… an array of “OK” audio. The new Ann Rule in my car just did not engage me, and while Killing Jesus is interesting (wow… does that sounds wrong…) I am not finding myself as fully invested as I was in Killing Kennedy and Killing Lincoln and I think I know why. It will make for an interesting review.

Making: Today I need to create something for Book Club. We decided this year our gift exchange would be homemade gifts. I have an idea… just need to get it done. Also – tonight I will be making dinner for Brad and Al…. Thai chicken is calling my name and a great butternut squash… (LOVE squash).

Blogging: This week seemed to have been the week for me to put up posts to engage others in. I put up two 2014 challenges –

2014 WHERE Are You Reading Challenge

2014 Bucket List Challenge

and I put up a New Years 1st Book Of The Year event

Anticipating: This afternoon I am going to Catching Fire (again!) with my friend Amy. Her first time seeing it, my second. It is her birthday and we were supposed to go opening night and she was unable to go. Cant wait to see it with her!

Also, looking forward to a semi quiet day. This weekend was a whirlwind of activity. I spent most of the day Friday and half the day Saturday helping at the Library. Last night we had a Christmas party to attend and a birthday party. I came home around midnight, great stuff…. but I hate overbooked schedules, they wipe me out.

Which, is probably a good description of me at this time… wiped out. I just need a few hours to re-energize. Today is the perfect day to do it. I little blog visiting, a little reading… I will be back up and moving before you know it. 😀

How is your Sunday shaping up? Is Sunday a “gear” up for Monday day, or is it a soak up the last of the weekend day and take it easy day?

Morning Meanderings…. Spending Time In The Library

Published on December 7, 2013December 7, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)32 Comments

Good morning! Happy Saturday. Current Brainerd Minnesota weather -21. 😯 NO kidding… I just looked. No wonder the dogs were like “are you kidding me?” when I let them out this morning.

For today’s Saturday Snapshot, I thought I would show you where I have been this week and what I have been doing. 😀

This past week I have spent quite a bit of time in our local library. This week I spent time working on the display window changing it out to good December reading.

Last weekend a group of the Friends came in on Sunday when the Library is closed and decorated for the holidays. It was the first time I participated in this and it was a lot of fun. We put up three trees and decorations on shelves, greenery everywhere and wreaths too.

Yesterday I was at the library for most of the day. I went in the morning to drop off my lap top and pick out donated books to make a “book tree”. As usual, I underestimated the amount of time it would take to do such a project. After an hour of picking out the right size books, I left for a coffee meet up I had with a friend. Then I came back for a meeting on the Friends logo that we are working on designing. This meeting went 2 1/2 hours. Then I went back to work on my tree which took me about another hour and a half. I left the library at 5:20 pm. I neglected to take a picture of the book tree but I will try to capture that today.

Today is the Friends Of The Brainerd Public Library Open House. This is the day that we invite the public to come and check out the decorated library and enjoy a cookie and coffee or juice. I am excited to go and hang out with the friends from 10 -2 today. If you live in the area, stop by and say hi!

Morning Meanderings… An Audible time of year

Published on December 6, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)29 Comments

Another wintery morning here.

Huh.

I was kind of hoping I would wake up and it would all be gone. 😛

I was going to write this morning that this time of year I love to listen to audio books, and while that is true. I realize that I listen to just as much audio now as I do the rest of the year, the only difference is I probably listen to more audio this time of year in the house. In the spring through fall I take it outside with me while I rake, mow the lawn, work in the flower beds, garden, bike, etc…. Now, I listen to it when I get home from work and I am in the kitchen planning dinner, or working on laundry, cleaning, or playing Candy Crush on Facebook. (Yes yes.. I said it… do not judge. 😛 )

I love having audio cds to take in my car as I tend to travel quite a bit year around, but when it comes to audio I can put on my IPOD or phone, I use Audible.com. I love it a the audio books are reasonable, when you first sign up your first one is free then you can choose to get one or two a month, any audio you want!

I think the first year I used Audible I was on the one credit a month plan but by year two I loved audio so much I bumped it up to two. They roll over so you dont lose them. They also have great sales throughout the year like $4.95 sales where you can choose from hundreds of audio books for that price. I stock up!

I decided to talk about audio this morning because I love to encourage people to try it. I was not an audio book listener until about 4 years ago and now I probably double my book count each year because of it. I review a lot of audio here and below listed a few of my favorites if you are looking for good audio. I know many other book loving audio listeners could add to this list:

The Help by Catherine Stockett

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe

Into The Wild by John Krakauer

11-22-63 by Stephen King

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

Will Grayson Will Grayson by John Green

Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson

One Second After by William Forstchen

A Grown Up Kind Of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson

The Last Original Wife by Dorothy Benton Frank

The Husbands Secret by Liane Moriarty

I could go on and on, but this should get you started…lol

In other crazy awesome news, just this morning I found out I won the KOBO giveaway at Alison’s Book Marks! I am so excited as I know when she received hers she loved it! I am very curious about this and will be sure to update once I have it and am using it. 😀

Morning Meanderings… Deadlines

Published on December 5, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)9 Comments

Good morning! As I sit here this morning well into that first cup of coffee, still in my p.j.s, contemplating this meandering… all I can wrap my head around are deadlines.

Today I have an 800 word article due to a local magazine about my friend Connie and Camp Benedict. I have a few details to tweak into the story so I reach my “time to go to work” moment I have a wee bit of “come on! Get ‘er done!”

I need to get registered for the Monster Series races yet this week. This is a series of runs that you sign up for as a group and there are some cool extras with that deal. This will be my gift for Christmas form my hubby and I am super excited about it as the Monster Series completion is on my bucket list. Of course… I should have done this a couple weeks ago, therefore now having missed early packet pick up…. egads…. (sorry Belinda but thanks for checking for me!)

With all the “not so awesome” snow we picked up in the storm of the last couple of days… I also need to shovel decks this afternoon when I get home.

There are bookish things I could talk about… the Library Open House is this Saturday, I set the window for holiday reading last night and hope to build the book tree either this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

Ok speaking of deadlines… I must get ready for work. Any “deadlines” hanging over your head this week? And why do they call them deadlines? When you think about it – its a horrible name. 😀 I prefer…. opportunities for procrastination. 😉

Morning Meanderings… Book Lovers Have Book Wishes Too!

Published on December 4, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)23 Comments

Good morning! Happy Wednesday! We are half way through the week and I am looking forward to the weekend! Last week was so busy I feel the need to get in a bit of chill time this weekend I hope. 😀

Recently I read a blog post that mentioned how book lovers like us rarely get books for Christmas as no one would dare try to guess what we have and what we don’t and what we want to read and what we do not want to read. I apologize, I do not recall who’s blog I read this on. I do recall however, how true a statement I thought it was at the time. Days later, I am still thinking about it.

It is true that I rarely get a book for Christmas or my birthday , or any gift giving scenarios. And it is true for all the above reasons, people have no idea what book I would like to have. It is the very reason why I put a wish list on this blog years ago and it remains there today so friends and family could see what I is on my coveted list. 😀

I thought today I would post some of the new items that have hit that wish list…

My new found love for all things Moriarty has brought this little gem into my radar.

Ever since I first seen this in Shelf Awareness I can not get it out of my head.

I love foodie books and memoirs of chefs. This one looks delightful!

I adored Cinder and am looking forward to this one!

Ok, even though this cover almost seems to scream “self published!” it is not… and it is J K Rowling hiding under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, which makes me curious….

Any time a book is said to be “The next Harry Potter”, I am listening. As of this date, the only series that has even come close IMO is The Mortal Instrument series and even that does not compare to the sheer brilliance of the HP books…. but, I am always looking. 😀

It shocks me as well that I have not read this yet after I have heard such great buzz. Truth is, I have not picked it up yet!

When it comes to books, I could just go on and on and on, but this is a small grouping of books that are on my radar to read, but at this time do not own. Christmas… is coming. 😀

Readers, what books would you like to see under the tree this Christmas season? And even if you do not celebrate Christmas, what books are you hoping and wishing for?

Morning Meanderings… Books To Check Out!

Published on December 3, 2013 by Sheila (Book Journey)22 Comments

Mmmmmmm. Good morning. Our area in Minnesota was doused with snow the last 24 hours. Our first real snow of the season. We are in a winter storm warning, supposedly 8 inches has fallen so far and they expect a total of up to 14. 😯 Coffee. Now please.

Because of everything I just mentioned, I skipped the gym this morning and slept in a bonus hour.

In bookish news, while reading blogs Sunday and Monday of this week I found some particular books/audio that caught my eye/ear. 😀

Kathy at Bermuda’s Weblog caught my attention with this audio she recently listened to.

Book Riot had a great post on bookish gifts for the Holidays and this snowflake one has me thinking ….

Jo at Captured On Film posted about this book which really has me interested. I like memoirs and Sharon has had quite the life.

Carrie at Books and Movies posted about this one in audio. Now this would probably not be a book I would normally pick up but the raves I have heard, and then Carries review of the audio had me download it yesterday from Audible.com.

That’s what I found in my blogesphere adventures. In other topics of interest…. what if you forgot the last ten years of your life? Seriously. Take a moment and go back 10 years. Where were you? What was your life like then? Now imagine that you woke up this morning and your last clear memory is from 10 years ago. You think you are ten years younger. You are surprised at the age of your children, your spouse, and yeah…. you. Or what if someone who was in your life ten years ago, now was not?

Join me later today when I post the review of What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty. (Totally….. Sqqqquuueeeee worthy). 😛