Good morning! Can you believe this is the first Morning Meandering in a week? Last week was all banned books week… all week. 😀 After a crazy busy and fun weekend I made it home yesterday afternoon tired but happy. Pictures from the bike ride will show up on Saturday.
Yesterday afternoon I took down the Banned Books display from the library and brought “My Precious” books home and switched out the window with “Spooktacuar Reads” for October for all ages. I put up a shelf of books for children, middle grade, young adults and adults. I use my own books or print covers of the books and put over a small box so that we don’t pull books off the library shelves – I wasn’t to be sure that if someone sees a book they would like to read, they have the opportunity to check it out – which yes, I also checked our on-line library catalog to be sure all the books int he window are books the library has. Yes, I can be anal. 😀
So here is a pic of that window:
I didn’t go all scary – but good mysteries and for the younger kids a couple about pumpkins too. 😀
I do have MANY winners yet to pick from Banned Book week but that is going to have to wait until tomorrow I will however tie up my giveaway from the Bloggiesta post, which is:
Congratulations! 😀 I will get that sent off to you in the next couple of days here.
Today I work and tonight is our book club review of The Wizard Of Oz! Expect great pictures to show up from that one as I know a few of us…a re planning to dress up and you never know what can happen when the Bookies get together! It is going to be a busy – but fun day! 😀
Good morning! 😀 It is the morning of my family gathering here at the house and I am feeling really good! I have worked hard the last couple of days prepping the house, the deck (which looks awesome!), the garage and yes, the finishing of the book room.
Now I know a lot of people who would not get excited about book shelves…. but I believe you, fellow book lovers, know how exciting it is to have room to put your books where you can find them and enjoy them. They look fantastic! So before I post the pictures know that most of these books are my private collection I have accumulated through the years. Library book sales, garage sales, ordered on-line and from my local Indy store… these are books that I have either read and loved, want to read, love the author so picked up others by the author… and yes, I admit some are unread and chosen because I love the cover or have heard good things about the book/author.
Ok…. ready?
This is the outside of the book room. I pulled two of my cases to the outside and really like the look.
Ok before we move into the room I need to explain how we came to have such a space unclaimed in the house. Originally, this space was two bedrooms. When we moved here, we added on a master bedroom off the back of the house and finished off the basement and put a bedroom down there as well. Then Al (buddy) made this space his office for our business. After a couple of years we put an office at the business which is, quite literally, out behind our house. Al moved all his office things to the new space and I was left with a big space and wondering what to do with it….
for the past 4 years it has held book shelves and my writing tools…
and now…
If you open the doors and look immediately to the left, this is what you see.
This is the left corner – these are review books, giveaways, and ll my food related books – cook books, memoirs, etc…
This is the left side – right corner if that makes sense and these are all alphabetized by author – upper shelf starts with “A”. These are all my personal books.
Ok. Standing in that left side and turning completely around – this is the right side of the room. I know, I know… I am so good with descriptions…LOL Oh yeah, and as I took the picture – Mater walked in. Hello Mater!
This is the close up of the right side and this is the continuation of the alphabet from M – Z.
This is the right side, right corner. Yes, that is ET. This space currently is used for books I have two of so I remember to do a giveaway when I review them It also hold my Bookies years in Reviews since 2002 and books that have come in this week for the Sunday Salon mention.
This is the right side of the room, left corner. This is where my current reads are, books I am using for research – anything I need to get my hands on quickly. Yes my long suffering copy of Jane Eyre is in this grouping.
This is the 5 remaining book shelves (there is on to the far left as well) in the room that you see when you enter the doors and look directly across the room. They have not been organized yet because I don’t want to eliminate them and need to think of their purpose. Eventually I may try to narrow in down so I can fit in a comfy chair again.
Ok… there it is. While working on this project 3 bags of books were donated to the library. 4 more bags will be going to my book club for first pick in October and those they do not want I will take and donate to the Friends Of The Library sale.
Thanks you Alyce for hosting Saturday Snapshot where we can post the pictures of our lives. Stop by Alyce’s spot at At Home With Books and see what other things people are taking pictures of. 😀
I am about to enjoy a beautiful fall day with my relatives. Maybe, those will be next weeks pictures… 😀
Good morning! Today is the official starting day to Bloggiesta Fall 2012! Bloggiesta is an awesome time to out and do a little blog maintenance, learn some new tips (yes, even us long time bloggers can learn something new!) and just overall come out the other side feeling awesome about out GREAT blogging community and our blogs. I love being a part of Bloggiesta!
For me this time around Bloggiesta is going to be surrounded by major going ons in my life and on the blog but I am going to do whatever I can to participate as much as I can. I am hosting a mini challenge and a gift card giveaway for the event. I am also hosting a huge Banned Book Party for Banned Book Week that starts Sunday and I am organizing that and participating in the banned book hop (I know, I know….I have said yes to too many things…. 😀 ) with a giveaway as well as the daily giveaways and awesome Banned Book posts that will start up here on Sunday and go through next Saturday.
Did I mention that tomorrow I am hosting a family reunion here at my home for about 50 people? 😯
Life….
is never dull. 😛 For my hopes and dreams of Bloggiesta this time around here is my to do list:
1. Catch up on the reviews I need to write (currently that is 4)
2. Visit at least 10 new blogs a day throughout the weekend. (I love visiting blogs!)
3. Update my side bar to my current reads
4. Participate in as many of the mini challenges as I can.
That’s it for now – due to obvious reasons (see above) I am going to keep it small and if I can add to this, which I suppose as I look at the mini challenges I will)….
Meryl Streep Movie Night – 1st night…
Quick update on last nights movie night at my home. I had rented from Netflix the movie The Deer Hunter for our first Meryl Streep Movie night gathering. You can catch all the details on that here. So I prepared some cheese and grapes and crackers for my guests and when they arrived we proceded to go watch the movie.
Except…
the movie wouldn’t load.
I took it out of the DVD player and it was cracked on the bottom. NO KIDDING! 😯 By the time we were deciding what to do it was 7:30 pm, we called out one local video store who did have a copy but when I looked on line I realized it was 3 hours long. 3 HOURS???? I didn’t even know they made movie that long in the 70’s! SO…. instead we watched My Sisters Keeper as sadly I had no Meryl Streep movies that I own (s0 my bad!). My plan is today to pick up the video store copy and I will watch it perhaps tonight or tomorrow night – but I will get it done and we will have our discussion… it may just now have to wait until after Banned Book Week. 😀
So that is what is happening here. I would love to hear about your weekend plans. Are you participating in Bloggiesta? In banned book week?
It is fall so Wednesdays are back and in full force. I work on Wednesdays until 3:00 pm, run home, let dogs out grab something to eat and go back to work with students from 5 – 8 pm. It wipes me out. 😯
But this morning I got up and as I sit here with my coffee reading the morning emails I remember that today is the release of JK Rowling’s new book The Casual Vacancy.
SSQQQQUUUEEE!!!!!
As I preordered that baby should be on my doorstep at some point today (thank you UPS!) and since the book room is done! SQQQQQUUUEEEE again! They finished the shelves yesterday, it will be going in there. 😀
In Shelf Awareness today JK Rowling says that she feels she will go back to writing for children, maybe younger than the Harry Potter crowd – BUT (and I love this but!) she has not ruled out that if an idea stemmed off the original Harry Potter series and she could enter that world again in a new and refreshing way – she would.
“That’s all I need to hear you say JK! That is all, that there is a possibility!” So this morning I am humming Mambo #5 which makes no sense at all except that I am singing “A Little bit Of J K in my life….” in place of a little bit of Monica…. and really thats all I know of the song so I keep repeating that same line :D.
Today will be WILD. I am going to work until noon – come home and put together the book room. SSSQQQUUUEEEE! ANd Ia lso need to write up my Bloggiesta mini challenge post, my Banned Book Week blog hop giveaway post, a review, and an article for Her Voice Magazine. Tonight is the first Meryl Streep Movie Club night at my house and I will be serving wine and cheese in honor of the book room – which, you will see pics of Saturday morning. 😀
Ok – must get moving. Did you pre-order the new JK book? Put a hold on it at the library? Do you plan to read it? Skip it? Wait to see what people are saying?
Good morning. 😀 *pause for dramatic and slow sip of coffee*
How ya all doing?
I am feeling pretty good and pretty “on task” for this weekends get together at my home. Yesterday I cleaned out the garage…. so small feat, but it needed to be done and now it is so clean it looks like we were robbed. The dead vacuum is gone, the totes of spare sheets that I use for when we serve with IHN for the homeless are packed away in a spare room, the bikes not in use have been moved to the other garage, the leaves and dirt that seems to blow in and accumulate… all removed. Hopefully if the weather cooperates this space will be the hub of the get together with people drifting to the back deck and in the house and yard.
This morning I was reading Shelf Awareness (love this email – if you do not have it be sure to check it out on my right sidebar and grab it) and they had two books that caught my eye for very different reasons. The first, October Mourning, still haunts me after seeing the trailer…
Matthew Sheppard’s story has pulled at my heart for years. I have another book on the shelf about his story that I have yet to read just because I know it is going to be a book that breaks me down. I will get there, hate crimes make me so angry.
And then… on a completely different brain wave I found this book to look interesting as well:
Mmmm hmmmm, doesnt that sound good? I love books with cooking themes.
SO I have to go get ready for work and call a friend but that is my morning thoughts today. Hope your day is wonderful.
Good morning! I totally skipped out on posting yesterday. Friday I had a three hour bike ride and then came home and hubby wanted to go out to eat and by the time I was home from that I was exhausted. 😯
Saturday morning I was up at 5:45 to get ready and meet at my friend Amy’s with Paula and Courtney so we could drive the two hours to Brooklyn Part and take part in the 5K Mud Factor… which was….
a bust.
After participating in the AWESOME Muckruckus in August which was from start to finish mud mud and more mud, sticky mud, watery mud, thick mud, stinky mud, you name it – it was mud…. this was pretty much not what we thought it would be.
The Mud Factor took place in a corn maze which for the first three miles of the 3.2 run was just dirt trails and the occasional obstacle. Some of the obstacles were small piles of dirt to go over… some were where they had dug a little hole for you to either jump in or over, but mud free. There was some of the cool rope climbing and tough girl stuff like that – but not enough to make this a win. At the very end there was a small slide down a hill into a little mud… very little, and at the very end you crawled through some thick mud under plastic ropes.
All in all we agreed it was too much money ($70 to register, $10 for a t shirt, $10 for parking and $5 for them to hold your bag of clothes to change into in a place that was watched). The Mud Ruckus was $100 registration but it was for MS and it included parking, a t shirt, your bag keeping, and food at the end.
Anyhoo – live and learn and it was still a good time hanging out with friends.
Pics were taken on a disposable camera which I have not turned in yet so watch for them to show up later this week. 😛
BOOKS.
A few books did come in the door this week, as my reading has slowed so has my review requesting.
The bottom three are review books, the top is an audio version of The Knife of Never Letting Go which I purchased.
This morning I have church and later tonight I have a get together. I hope to work on the book room a bit this afternoon and if it warms up perhaps cleaning out the garage for next weekends family get together.. I think it will be an audio day. 😀
Good morning! It’s a gorgeous Fall (yeah, I said the “F” word) morning here and as I sit and sip at my coffee enjoying watching the dogs play I have an underlying buzz that things are about to take off…
and this is going to be fun. 😀
This morning I just posted out to my book club and a group of friends reminding them that this next Thursday is the kick off to our Meryl Streep Movie Club. This is where we have decided to (those who want to anyway) to watch a Meryl Streep movie a month – randomly picked and our first one will be The Deer Hunter. This movie was Meryl’s second movie released in 1978 and the trailer is super cheesy but I bet our gathering is fun. I am going to open this up as an online club as well so those who wish to follow along and join in the discussion that I will post monthly may do so. I will probably put that post up tomorrow afternoon….
Last night I stayed up late and emailed everyone who has signed up to participate in the Banned Book Week event I am hosting here and I assigned everyone their post dates and confirmed what they are doing. This is going to be a lot of fun – there are over 50 blogs signed up to participate with banned book posts, giveaways, etc… it’s not to late to sign up if you want to join in the fun.
As I am enjoying a quiet morning I know that soon I need to continue working on the book room, clean off my deck in anticipation for next weekends family gathering here, finish laundry, start cleaning up the garage, run to town for a few things I need to pick up, mail out some invites this afternoon, and maybe – maybe take a little bike ride.
Tomorrow I run in the Mud run in Bloomington Minnesota and I am a tad apprehensive. I have been so busy lately that I have not done any form of exercise in the last two weeks and this… must change. My goal is to get in 7 hours of work outs a week – some days longer than an hour to have a day or two off but I need to get in some better habits.
Reading wise, I have not picked up a book all week and once again thank goodness for audio. I am sailing along listening to PREP for banned book week, and just picked up The Chocolate War from the library, also for banned book week. Over this weekend I will finish Defending Jacob which has been very good, and Back Seat Saints.
So thats what is happening around here. I am finally going to finish writing my post for this months book club book that rated the all time low in 11 years of the Bookies. That post, will go up today 🙂
How is your weekend shaping up? Anything fun happening?
Good morning. COFFEE is good today as I sit in the early light anticipating a full day. I work today and have an event to assist with tonight so I suspect it will be one of those days that I have maybe an hour or so between work and event so may just be at work all day and night… home around 9:00 pm.
Right now though, I am still relaxing and thinking about my book room.
If you have been around here lately you know we are in the process of revamping the book room. It was way too crowded with all the individual book shelves and I finally made the leap to putting the selves on the wall. As of yesterday the person working on the room had run out of the wood that was needed for the shelves but half of the room is done and the other will be once the wood comes in. The wood is on back order and has a 14 day lead time, they (the wood store) is unsure when the wood was ordered so while that is frustrating, the project is looking really good and I am hopeful it will still be done before the family gathering I have here at the end of the month.
When I came home yesterday I started working on the part of the room that is done and by that I started organizing by
1. Creating review shelves (books to review)
2. A food shelf (all books food related – memoirs, cook books, healthy eating…)
3. I started alphabetizing my non review books (but many still need to be read) by authors last name.
This…
is quite the project.
I worked on this from 3:30 – 8:30 and then decided that was enough for the night. I have been sorting out my personal books between keepers, books for my book club to get first chance at, and books to donate to the library. I have 4 big bags of books that will be leaving the house and that feels good.
When the project is finished I want to find some sort of library check in that I can scan in all my books and know what I have. I can not wait until it is finished and I can share the whole thing with you. 😀 I did post some before pics the other day… it will never look like that again.
One of the corners of the book room that I worked on last night. ALPHABETIZING.Filling the shelves…The books that will be donated.
Another thing to perhaps do with a book or two is give it to this great online program ran by Book Soulmates – RAK. RAK is Random Acts Of Kindness and book lovers can sign up with a list of books they have on their wish list and the point is that participants check the list – send a book off someones wish list to them and hopefully someone sends you one off your wish list as well. It is a monthly program and this month I am finally participating. I am watching the wish lists for books that I have and may be willing to pass on to someone else. You can check out the program here.
What do you do with your books when you are done reading and they are not keepers?
Good morning. Its a bit nippy here in Minnesota this morning. Currently a whopping 40 degrees with a high today of 59. Ugh…. I finally have to admit, fall is here. So, is that what is making me weepy?
Weepy could be because I am so close to have my book shelves done that I can taste it (wow, that don’t seem right…) and hopefully today will be the final day my home is invaded by the awesomeness of construction and alas when I come home from work I will be able to start moving books on to them. SSQQQUUUEEEEE!
OR am I weepy because last night I watched Hunger Games and teared up when Prim’s name was called and Katniss says the all so famous line:
“I volunteer as tribute!”
OR…
was it Rue’s final moments and while Katniss weeps (apparently like me), she also shows she is still strong…
And just when I thought it was only last night where I was weepy, alas no…. because this morning I watched the World Book Night Video for the Midwest (give it up for my peeps!) and again… I tear up.
Awesome huh? And as I sit here this morning I realize I still have not written my review for our book club book of September that rated the all time lowest rating we have ever given a book as a whole since we began in 2001. 😯
And that will have to wait for tomorrow because…
I already wrote today’s review last night and I have to go get ready for work as I want to be out of here and have the dogs settled before the construction begins today…
Oh what a night, is what is in my head right now! My friend and fellow Bookie Susan went with me yesterday afternoon to drive the 2 1/2 hours to Minneapolis to go to a book event at Magers and Quinn Booksellers (also where Michelle from Red Headed Book Child) works. We arrived around 4:35 pm where we checked out the book store and then Sandra found us.
The three of us went down the block to a Thai restaurant that was fun and delicious and then we proceeded to talk for the next two and a half hours about books and research and life and well… we had a BLAST! We then went back to the store for Sandra’s book event where we shared more about her books, the direction they are going – and what might be coming next! SSSQQQUUUEEEEE!
We were there until about 9:45 pm when we made out way to the parking ramp and started out trek home – but no complaints coming from this chick – we had so much fun – Sandra is so down to earth and so filled with awesomeness – really – if you get a chance to meet her do not hesitate to do so.
That was a great night!
As far as books that entered my home this week – it was a mellow week and the top two I purchased last night:
I have to run, I am meeting a friend this morning and then I want to get home to read and chill today – my life explodes back to BUSY tomorrow. 😀
Book Journey 