Good morning people of Tuesday! I come in peace…. and with coffee 😛
Ugh…. raining AGAIN in Central Minnesota…. gloomy and gray….
The view off my back deck this morning.
Anyhoo…
YESTERDAY afternoon I came home from work. The day had a bit of a fall feeling to it, cooler and overcast and I was going to work on some on-line stuff. SO I grabbed my laptop, my mouse, my blanky, and popped into the recliner. Logged on… and for the life of me, could not get the mouse to work.
*Note: I am nothing without the laptop mouse. It is a crutch, I know… but I can not navigate pages, scroll to comments, or I sure can not play Scrabble on Facebook because I can not figure out how to hang on to the tiles to move them into place without the mouse.
The mouse, appears by all appearance to be working fine. The little light on the bottom indicates a good battery. I reset it. I take the battery out and put the battery in. I even get up and grab two more batteries out of the drawer and try them. All the same results… mouse looks fine, will not work.
I… am seriously frustrated. For some reason the mouse will not be acknowledged by the laptop.
I…. am wasting time.
About 30 minutes later I get up go do something else…. as I pass by my kitchen table I see this:
For those unfamiliar with the workings of the cordless mouse, this little do-dad here is what plugs into your computer/laptop to make the mouse work. Without it… by all appearance your mouse is going to look like it should work… it will not. 😯
😛
SO….. once I put that little guy into my laptop side… all was well in mouse world again…. but I….
was feeling pretty foolish and wondering how that detail fell out of my head.
Moving on…. today I work, but tonight… I have no agenda. I LOVE that! And it is rainy but no matter, all my outdoor work – mowing, trimming, is done. 😀 Quite the opposite of last week when I had something going on every night. 😀
How is your Tuesday unfolding? Are there books in your day? Which one(s)? Mine may be the conclusion on Jane Eyre and finishing up Some Girls by Sara Pekkanen as well.
Good morning. 😀 I am on up of coffee #2, #3…. listening to The Magicians on audio this morning (thank you Judith for asking on Twitter! 😀 ) and contemplating which way my day will go and for that matter… this post.
Normally on Sundays I show you what books came in this week… and I think a few did… however, after the BEA boxes arrived mid week, and lots of company and events almost every evening this week… I think I mixed them up in the reading room and that right now… needs to be loved on – but that is another post entirely and rest assured, I have a plan and I am working on it. 😀
Instead this morning I am going to show you a movie trailer to a book I meant to read last October for banned book week but I did not get to it. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower:
It open in mid September and that is great and means I will have to read the book before then instead of during banned book week as my rule is if at all possible I read the book before I see a movie based off a book.
As for today – it looks gorgeous outside… I have church, then I need to mow the lawn (ahhh…. audio!) I have reviews to write and prep and books to finish reading. Hubby and I went out to dinner last night for Fathers Day, we may hot a movie later this afternoon at our newly remodeled and opened theater in town… I think we are looking at Rock Of Ages… which blows my mind that it is om Cruise.
Happy Saturday everyone! Did you know this is my favorite day of the week? Saturdays are the one day each week I can linger a bit more in the morning without rushing out the door. If I can, I keep them fairly open, non commitment filled… I like the options of choosing what I do with my day, at least once a week 🙂
I hope you had a chance to stop by yesterday to my annual Blogiversary Party. It is always fun that it lands shortly after BEA so I can give away a few books and swag. If you have a few minutes, it is well worth just reading the imaginative comments that make me smile, and occasionally laugh out loud. (I challenge everyone to let me know how they arrive at the party and what virtual food item/or gift they brought with. Lets just say it is going to take me weeks to get the crumbs out of my blog side bars and pretty sure there was a little cake on the header this morning too I had to clean up. 😛
SO now…. for my winners! Using random.org, here are the winners of the packages:
Congratulations everyone! As soon as I have your addresses I will be able to mail out – email me at
journeythroughbooks @gmail.com
Ok, now that the business portion of this morning post is done I do have a picture – yes, one picture (so unlike me) for Alyce’s Saturday Snapshots. This one I took the other day while sitting outside on the deck with a friend and my to dogs…. we were sitting in the tall chairs at the tall table and Bailey, decided to climb up on the deck table… while that was shocking enough, Sam… climbed from the deck, to the table, to the chair, leaped up on the deck railing and sat there…. like a cat. 😯
Be sure to stop by Saturday Snapshots at At Home with Books to see what other people are taking pictures of!
One last little “housekeeping” item… I am running a blog survey this week (see upper right side bar) and I would love it if you could take a minute or two to give me some feedback. Next week after it is complete I will post the results and offer up a $10 gift card to one of the participants in this survey. 😀
Enjoy your Saturday, I am about to write a guest post for a friend and a post for later today…. then… I think I will be outside – it is gorgeous out today and I want to take full advantage!
Anybody else wondering if I write reviews any more?
Ok… Just checking…
Seriously though, it feels like I have not written a book review in weeks. Probably – because that is true. I did not get any written during BEA and since I have been back I have been in a haze of keeping up on the house, the weather (oh rain… GO AWAY!) working, catching up with friends…
All good things, and I am reading – but I sit down at night to write a post and my eyes glaze over and I wind up playing a couple rounds of Scrabble on Facebook and going to bed. 😯
And now today – I am going to talk about the books from BEA because I should… and I want to. And tomorrow, if the big Blogiversary celebration here and seriously – come – you are invited and it really is a big deal. I have all sorts of giveaways (some will be BEA related!) and it is always a good time. Here is a link to last years party…. SO MUCH FUN! 😀 OH and bring a guest this year – for sure 😀 (More on that tomorrow morning)
Anyway – back to the books. Here is my BEA haul – thank you to my friend Heidi and her awesome daughter Camryn who came over and dug through boxes with me. 😀
There it is…. and I have some major organizing to do in the book room…. seriously. 😀 Hope your day is wonderful! And really hope to see you tomorrow…. it is going to be so MUCH FUN! 😀
Today is my first day back to work in 9 days. I had all last week off for the Book Expo in New York (see my final post on that here) and then I took yesterday off to experience the Duluth Minnesota book sale – the coveted book sale for me of the past few years.
Why coveted? Word on the street was the Duluth Library sale was the best in Minnesota. Seems like I either missed the date each year, or had a conflict and could not go. This year I made it.
The outside of the Duluth Library
I had some things I liked and some things not so much… here is my pro/con list for this sale:
Pro:
When in line they give you numbers so once you have your number you can go do whatever (I went to Starbucks), come back before they open at 10 am and they let you in by number.
Con:
Many of the books were older titles (as in many years). I am usually looking for books I have heard about recently or a couple years old.
The cost for the large paperback I love was $1.00 each. At Brainerd sale, they are 25 cents each.
The quantity to me felt less than Brainerd’s although Duluth’s sale is so much bigger.
To be a friend of the Duluth Library you have to pay $10, this gets you in the first day of the sale. Brainerd’s is $5 for the membership.
Overall it was a fun experience, I talked to some fun people in the line while I waited, but for a two hour drive one way, I don’t think I found enough to make it an annual thing. Here is what I left with:
My biggest thrill was the hard cover of The Passage. I have a paper back copy but that one will now go to our cabin for guest reading and the hard cover goes on my top shelf all time favs.
Curious – do you have library sales in your area? What do you look for?
Good morning! 😀 I can not even begin to tell you how good it felt to sleep in my own bed last night…. and now sit in my recliner looking out on a beautiful day and knowing I will soon be basking in the sun with a book enjoying a (for the most part) quiet day.
Quiet because no one knows I am in town. Well, a few friends do, but I was supposed to come back from New York and go right into the MS 150 bike ride that I would have shuttled to yesterday afternoon after I got off the plane. The night before I left New York I cancelled out of the ride. I really wanted to do it but several things were at play:
1. I was exhausted from all the events and constant “go go go” of New York
2. I really was missing seeing Hubby, and our new pup, Sam.
3. A little peopled out. I had been with large amounts of people since last Sunday and I am a person who needs to unplug from the activity and step back at least once a week. Doing the ride today and tomorrow would have put me with about 2,500 people.
4. I wasn’t looking forward to two more nights in a hotel.
SO here I am. Home. Today I am going to mow the lawn and listen to audio. I have some wonderful choices thanks to a dinner we had the last night in New York with John from Brilliance audio (going with The Magicians, John!) . I cant wait to dig in and I just finished one last night on my IPOD so I am ready. 😀 I am also going to write a few reviews throughout the day. I wrote up a list yesterday and I am about 5 behind, soon to be more as this afternoon I am sitting on my deck with book. That is the plan. And later we have invited friends over to grill tonight and hang out and chat. She is in my book club so it will be fun to talk BEA, and they are close friends so this will be quite laid back and I am soooooo looking forward to it.
For this mornings Saturday Snapshot brought to you by the wonderful Alyce from At Home With Books, I thought I would give you a few random shots of New York and the Expo. I started my recap post yesterday afternoon with BEA Recap 1, and hope to put up recap 2 later today. I am writing a blow-by-blow of my daily experience to give you the BEA feel. To pick up the full story on the pictures, please read my recap posts. 😀
We were in a thai restaurant (Yum Yum Two – so good!) and it started to pour. It was actually pretty to watch. As soon as the rain came, it went, and by the time we were done eating it was a beautiful day to walk. The Javitz Center…. where all the magic happens 🙂Oh Snap! Me and James Dashner! (More about this in the recap part 2)Can someone identify this building for me? I was walking with Alison from Alison’s Book Marks and she said it was one of the most gorgeous buildings in New York.Times Square!Day 1 Registration area for BEA… about 8 am.
More to come in the next couple of days here. 🙂 Also a completely random note but today is my 3 year blogiversary – in the past two years we have had a big party here with giveaways (books, swag, gift cards) and fun stuff and I do not want to miss that so please accept my invitation to my 3 year Blogiversary Party which will take place on Friday June 15th. 😀
Good morning! Oh wow… I did not mean to be absent from the blogesphere while in New York. I can’t explain how this year is different from last years other than I think I was wiped out before I came to New York and feel like I have never really caught up. AND every day since stepping a toe off the place in New York I have RAN from event to event…
Which I promise upon my return home I will give details and pictures… I am just a little fried right now and as I type my roommate Gail from Ticket To Anywhere is saying “Are you actually writing a blog post?”
Which I am….
a little one. 😀
So today is the last day of BEA and I have had a blast, met up with friends, met some fun authors and event got lost in New York for about an hour (sorry Alison!)… more on all that later –
What I did want to share is if you remember last year Reagan from Miss Remmers Reviews and I took over the info booth…. well, Reagan did not attend this year….
however, I thought it would be fun…
to do it again:
So there I am … alive and caffeinated in New York. Thank you for hanging in there with me, we will return to our regularly scheduled blogging whatevers upon my return home.
Good morning! It’s really really early by the time you are reading this I should be flying to New York, my flight left Minneapolis at 5:45 am. Book Expo Of America… here I come!
Today I wanted to share with you something a little different than I normally do in the mornings. While many book bloggers are currently flying from all over the world to New York…. many of you are still at home keeping the blogs fires lit. What I want to share with you this morning, or I guess really, what I have asked Danielle from There’s A Book, to do this morning is share with you a very fun event called Armchair BEA.
Take it away Danielle!
Hi Sheila and Book Journey Readers!
What an exciting week and month in the book blogging community! Book Expo America, Armchair BEA and Audiobook Month all packed in together making more than enough bookish goodness to go around.
I’ve long been a fan of Sheila’s site and especially her enthusiasm for all she’s involved with. So, when she asked if I’d be interested in guest posting on her site about one of the biggest events happening in the book industry, Armchair BEA, I was so excited.
For those of you who might not be familiar with Armchair BEA first off let me say you absolutely should check it out! In a nutshell here are the basics of what makes up this great event:
If you’re a book blogger who can’t attend Book Expo America and the Book Blogger Convention in New York this June (June 4 – 8, 2012), you don’t have to miss all the fun – this virtual convention is the place to be! The Armchair BEA site includes news about daily blogging themes, discussions, giveaways and more!
This is the third year for Armchair BEA and it’s more exciting than ever. Armchair BEA began as six book bloggers (Tif from Tif Talks Books, Florinda
Armchair BEA won this award in 2011
from The 3 R’s Blog, Pam from Bookalicious.org, Chris from Chrisbookarama, Michelle from That’s What She Read, Emily from Emily’s Reading Room and myself) looking for a way to enjoy the week without feeling too bad that we couldn’t actually attend the event in person. To be honest, we all originally thought of calling it the “BEA Pity Party,” but decided it would be so much more fun to make it a fun event centered around the books, authors, publishers and bloggers we love. What we didn’t anticipate was the overwhelming response from the book community. With only two weeks of planning before BEA and Armchair BEA started that first year we had over one hundred participants, close to a dozen sponsors, an agenda filled with activities and even one Twitter party.
Since that first year we’ve added more organizers (Amy from My Friend Amy and Julie from My 5 Monkeys), increased the number of participants from one hundred to over five hundred the second year, added partners (Edelweiss and Book Expo Authors Studio Podcast) and included nearly ev
ery major publisher in our Sponsors listing. Last year was a whirlwind packed with behind the scenes exclusives and an additional Twitter party.
During our third year we’ve grown to include more than any of the original founders would have ever predicted. What began as a way to escape the feelings of missing everything going on in New York has become the event to participate in. This year, in one of the biggest surprises thus far, we’ve now partnered with Book Expo America. The partnership is one of the biggest steps toward bringing everyone involved with Armchair BEA closer to the event happening in New York and we couldn’t be more excited.
No doubt Armchair BEA has become something each of us organizers looks forward to ea
ch and every year. I hope if you haven’t already decided to join in that you’ll consider it, even if you happen to be attending BEA! Armchair BEA is definitely the event of the year and we’d love to have everyone from the book blogging community participate!
So there you have it… it looks (and sounds so awesome) and I am hoping that many of you will pop over to the Armchair BEA site and applaud the hard working bloggers that are working behind the scenes, as well as a few like Danielle that are at BEA making connections to Armchair BEA.
By 1:00 pm central time I will be popping through the New York airport trying to find luggage and a taxi to get in the vicinity of my hotel…. check in is not until 3 but I can drop my bags there and then I think I am connecting with Mari from Bookworm with a View and my roommate, Gail from Ticket To Anywhere. Sunday 6 – 9 pm is the Simon and Schuster Open house.
I will continue to pop in as I can… I had big plans to have more posts ready before I left but my week got away from me and now I am hoping to get a few reviews up this week as well, but for sure you will hear about my day to day happenings at BEA! 😀
Good morning. Let’s just get to this. I have been up since 5 am. I am sitting here in my pajama’s… coffee cup at my right hand… next to a notebook of lists of “to do’s”. Later this afternoon, I will drive to the cities and stay overnight to catch my flight in the wee hours of the morning tomorrow to New York for BEA.
I have not packed. I have not really done much of anything besides organizing my agenda of events on Wednesday evening. I have never been less prepared for this trip. 😯
My work week was busy with a capital B. Yesterday is normally my day off but I had things to prep for while I was gone next week and I thought I would be out by noon and then get a jump on these tasks before me. Uhhhh…. yeah…. I walked out of work at 4:55 pm, barely making it to the bank in time, in fact they locked the door behind me as I ran in.
With my hubbies busy schedule as owner of an Excavating company, I take care of all lawn care. Our lawn takes about 2 1/2 to 3 hours to mow and I broke a belt on it on Monday. I got it fixed and on Thursday evening at 8:15 pm (yup… pm) I mowed the front part. Last night after running to the bank and getting home around 5:15 pm I should have started the back and finished it. Instead I called my hubby, found out he would not be off the job until around 9 pm, took one look at the lawn, thought about my BEA prep I still needed to do… groceries to buy…. and I called a friend and went out to a quick dinner instead. 😛
I got home around 8:30 pm, and started the back lawn until I could not see… and I will finish later today before I leave.
So today – here is what I need to do:
1. pack
2. finish laundry
3. finish lawn
4. stop at work, one quick email I need to send
5. take bike to friends house who will deliver it to Duluth for me for the MS 150 bike ride next weekend.
6. Pack my bike gear
7. Fix the deck gate so Sam (newer dog) can not squeeze through while I am away and break my heart)
8. Grocery shop for hubby while I am away – quick easy fixes
9. Stop at a couple stores in town – I have a gift card
10. Get nails done
See – really it is not so bad…. only 10 things! 😀
Anyhoo… I do want to post a pic or two fro Alyce’s Saturday Snapshot since I almost forgot it is Saturday…. here is my deck after last weekend hauling out of all things that scream “yes, come and hang out with me at my favorite place to hang in the warm summer time:
(Stop by and add your own pics to Saturday Snapshot as well or just check out what everyone else is up too 🙂 )
Have a super day – and dont worry about me… I actually work well under pressure and have a game plan of when and where I need to be to get it all done and leave here about 4 pm this afternoon. From the hotel tonight I plan to prep a post or two, and I will be checking in throughout the expo as well so keep stopping by 😀
Good morning! 😀 Hope you all are finding your Friday morning to already be delightful… the sun is actually out here so I am hoping for a lovely day which I need in order to finish our lawn 😀
This will be a rather sporadic post this morning. I am usually off on Fridays but this next week while I am away is a big one for a kids camp that I usually help with, a big meeting that I normally do the set up for… BEA pushing back one week this year has put me where I am today – going into work to do some more prep work and hopefully I can be done by noon. I have not packed yet, I want to get my nails done, prep some food for my hubby here, and pack for my bike ride that will take place right after I return from BEA – RIGHT AFTER as in that bag needs to be in my vehicle. 😀
In a completely random side ways conversation… my audio book order came in from bookcloseouts.com… Each of these was around $3.00 each:
YAY!!! My summer listening is going to be AWESOME!!!
And finally, if you missed out on the garden party here yesterday for our read a long, Secret Garden, you missed some wonderful party conversations! I, was late to my own party with a heavy schedule yesterday but caught up with all of you at the end and had a chance to chat with each guest so I feel it was a success. I have not made it around to all the posts yet, but I will – later today. 😀
There were some winners from the Secret Garden read a long and using random.org while I sit my coffee this morning they are as follows:
Winners please email me shipping info (no po boxes!) at journeythroughbooks@gmail.com. Robin, I will email you your gift card. 😀
There is also a survey going on yesterdays post about what book I am going to offer up next for a June read-a-long, feel free to put your two cents in – I will announce that book and sign up info tomorrow morning. See you all later – have a gorgeous day! 😀
Book Journey 