It certainly went out with a bang here as I mentioned yesterday we were DUMPED on by the snow fairies….. I shouldn’t complain too much – it was not as bad as was predicted and it is all over now except for all that snow… which I am not a fan…which I know I live in Minnesota and do not like snow. It’s true.
February is usually a great reading month for me but I don’t think it was this year. Seems like as of late reading has been hard to find the time. I am behind on books, but not reviews because I need to read the books to do the reviews… you get the picture. 😀
In the next couple of days I will work on my Feb stats and get that posted but I think it will be disappointing, mainly because I have several books going that I want to finish… just need to make the time to do so.
In other news – I was FINALLY able to put my review on Amazon for The Book Club Cookbook, which I LOVED and I am excited to be the first to review it there!
SSSQQQUUUEEE!!!!!
Today I work and work out – tonight I must finish my reviews for Her Voice magazine – the books are read the reviews are written I just need to put them in a word document and send them. It does not sound hard right? Yet night after night I claim I am too tired…. what is my issue? 😯
Well… here’s to March… may it be filled with great reads and time to read them 😀
Brainerd Minnesota is under a winter storm warning as I type until 6 pm tonight. It is coming down pretty hard right now and due to continue to 6 pm tonight. Here is what it currently looks like:
My back deck... was snow free last night...
Back yard
Front deck...
Its snowing and blowing and some may be able to call this a snow day but here is the good and the bad about where I live. I live right off a main highway that takes me directly to work which is about 3 miles away – straight stretch. Of all people, I am the one that can get to work.
Being from Minnesota, of course both my vehicles have 4 – wheel drive….
So – while I was hoping it would be a complete white out and I could stay at home… I dont think that is the case so I am off to get ready for work…
IF this had been my dreamed of an actual snow emergency my day would have been:
writing my book reviews that are due
READING!
Making Soup
and part of that reading would have been what arrived in the mail at my house yesterday:
SQQQUUEEEEE!!!!
Ok… seriously – I have to get ready for work…. my three mile drive and my snow filled driveway might be interesting 😀
Did anyone else watch the Oscars on Sunday night? I admit… I first was watching Amazing Race with the hubby… BUT as soon as that was over I tuned into the Oscars. While not a die-hard fan, I do like to look at what people are wearing and this year in particular – I was interested as so many movies from books were up for awards…
Highlights for me were of course the supporting actress award going to Octavia Spencer for The Help.
If you did not see her acceptance speech grab a tissue and watch it. If you have yet to see The Help, I highly suggest you do and do it soon. Octavia is a hoot (yes I said hoot!) throughout the movie and in case you did not know… she is also the voice of Minny on the audio version of the book. Nice pic all the way around and standing ovation on her best supporting actress award.
As always the Oscars in surrounded with wonderful announcers and one stands out to me…. Angelina Jolie parades out to the stage front and center and immediately takes a stance that I was sure was going to be the topic of today:
So at first umm…. glance, you (I) would think well… she is in very good shape why not show off a little…. er, a lot of leg….. although this was when she was presenting an award… prior to that moment there was…
Brad and Angelina earlier in the eveningand on the red carpet, Angelina with her legand yet again.... another pose with her leg
Ok … I am picking…. I mean if I had legs like that I may have a tendency to show them off a bit too…. what surprises me is that Angelina has a history of awkward Oscar moments (oh if only I could forget the year of her acceptance speech about her brother….), but again… I pick. Honestly I think this whole thing went down something like this:
(Scene: The Pitt/Jolie home. Afternoon, pre- Oscar arrival, Brad and Angelina meet in the foyer after each getting dressed in their separate rooms)
Brad takes a look at Angelina…
Brad: That dress shows off quite a bit of leg
Angelina: So? I have quite a bit of leg.
Brad: Well its going to be hard to not draw attention to yourself my dear.
Angelina: Jealous much my much shorter darling?
Brad (smugly): Ok, fine, we don’t have time for this. I DARE you to bare your leg….. ALL of your leg at least ten times during the Oscars. Oh and it must be caught on camera!
Angelina: Fine, you are on. If I win you owe me a green bean. I am famished!
😛
LOL
Ok enough of Angelina…
In other Oscar moments I realized I have missed out on a few movies that I did not think I would enjoy but after seeing highlights now I have added them to my “must see” list…
and my nominees are….
Hugo
Moneyball
Iron Lady
and of course, I need to own The Help.
Did you watch the Oscars? Have you seen any of these movies or want to see any of these movies?
Good morning! Happy Sunday! This has been an extreme week and I am so thrilled to be able to see the finish line to the over committing for a little while at least 😀
Last Sunday after a busy afternoon I played Floor Hockey.
Monday I worked, came home-made a desert and then went to our Monday evening small group study. We are starting a book called Ten Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe by Larry Osborne. I cam e home at 8:30 pm.
Tuesday I worked all day, ran to pick up a few things at the grocery store, came home with dinner for Al, and cooked my pasta for book club – then went to book club. We had an awesome time and I came home at 9:30 pm.
Wednesday – worked all day (seeing a pattern here?) Rushed home to change and went back to help with the students activities like I do every Wednesday evening. Home at 8 pm.
Thursday – worked all day, prepped for an event in Aitkin (40 miles from where I live), picked up a pizza for Al, changed, drove to Aitkin by 5 pm and helped with event… home at 8:45 pm
Friday – worked until noon… met my husband for a quick-lunch so I could see what he looks like (seems like these days I only see him when he is sleeping… :razz:. Went and got a hair cut, ran home to pack, met 8 friends at Applebees at 4:30 pm, had dinner then drove an hour to Crosslake Minnesota for the women’s retreat at Trout Lake Camp. As soon as we were there we had a two-hour session, bed around midnight.
Saturday sessions and a chance to catch up with ladies I never seem to have enough time to talk to, which was nice… really nice. Busy all day – short break in the afternoon, then in the evening a Purse auction, which was fun.
Which brings me to today. 😀 I have a dull headache from lack of sleep and am assured that a nap is in my near future. Tonight I have floor hockey again, work and group meeting tomorrow evening and then a quieter week… I think… nothing Tuesday, (YAY!!!), Wednesday students but I am going to request a pass this week, Thursday dinner with friends and then the blissful weekend of no commitment! 😀 That is my goal!
Now… I just want to relax and read…. that’s it.
How is your week ending? Hopefully it was a wonderful one! 😀
Ok picture this (since a real picture would be frightening and I know some of you have kids who would have nightmares…)
Hair in my eyes and well… everywhere. (Haircut scheduled for this afternoon…. Thankfully!)
Sleep pants and t shirt
flip flops
Coffee cup… not full enough… not hot enough… not enough.
Cheeto stuck to the side of my face.
(Ok, not really about the Cheeto but I thought that was a funny visual.) 😛
I have had a crazy week and that is why the Morning Meanderings have been missing as of late. No time to meander… my days are work, my evenings are commitments… I run from one thing to the next.
Today I plan to work a short day, 8 – 11:30… then I am hitting the gym 12:15 – 1:15, then I have a hair cut at 1:30… then I need to come home and pack for the womens retreat that starts at hmmm….. 4:30 meeting at Applebees. (Dont you hate it when even the fun stuff feels like a commitment?) 😯
I will be at the retreat until Sunday late morning… then home, floor hockey at 4 pm then HOME for the night. YAY!!!
I know I will have a good time once I get there… I am just tired and I have a ‘tude. Laptop is coming with so I will be checking in and I do have posts for the weekend too…. no idea when I had time to write them – but they are there 🙂
I am off… I have 32 minutes to shower, dress, stop at the store and get to work. Oddly… that is enough time for me… I am probably the fastest get ready woman in the world…. LOL
I did not get around to many blogs yesterday. Between work and last nights meeting I had a tiny window of about an hour and a half which I used for CRAZY stuff like a load of laundry and making dinner. 😛
However, and possibly unfortunately, in the few I was able to get around to…. I found….
books.
I know… I know…. like a hole in my head, but yeah… books and darn good reviews that made me want to read those books…. and now… I am going to pass them to you so you catch the fever too!
I have seen this book around… not really given it much thought (you know what a cover snob I can be and this is just not calling me…. but then I innocently pop over to see Lydia from The Lost Entwife and I am reading a review for this book that causes me to put it on the wish list. Whoa. What happened?
Stop over and check it out for yourself!
And then…
Ok this cover DOES call to me… I don’t know why…. maybe because it looks like Skittles…. or pastel Easter M & M’s, but any book reader knows…. one can not live off cover love alone….
Nope. Instead I am over at Kritter’s Rambling minding my own business and then this review makes my jaw drop and now… now I want to read this. I want to read this now.
In other news, it is snowing. SNOWING. My beautiful dead grass world is now covered with snow and it is supposed to continue irritating me for the next three days. Not a fan.
Tonight is book club. We have read Adrianna Trigianni’s Very Valentine. This is a re-read for me but a delicious one and while I grumbled about it being a book I have already read, I forgot how fun it is to read Adrianna’s writing and for that…. I am a schmuck. Instead… getting back into Valentine’s world has almost (almost) made me forget about the snow… 😛
Happy Sunday all. 😀 You may have noticed that in this past week I have not posted one review. Not one.
😯
I am not sure if that has even happened before.
I chalk it up to a busy week with most nights (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) not getting home before 8 pm and one worn out book girl stumbled off to bed with book in hand read two pages and promptly fell asleep….
I also can attribute it to my current book and audio choices…
We’ve Got A Job is a beautiful large hardcover book with tons of pictures, yes, but also a lot of words and interesting facts that I read slowly to absorb.
11-22-63 I have been listening to for the last two weeks. This is a 30 hour and 44 minute audio book. (The book is almost 900 pages). I finished this one last night and WOW. Really wow.
My usual audio books are between 6 and 10 hours so you can see where this slowed me down…
and then of course there is my self-inflicted read of Jane Eyre… my goal of reading ten pages a day (FAIL!) and trying to keep up with that and by trying to read the ten (pages (FAIL!) a night without falling asleep to the wording of “thy master’s home… and feeling swoon….” 😯 Anyhoo… you will see an update on that hopefully later today in the Eyre report.
As for my Sunday Salon, the week was good and busy and I guess usual. I worked all week, went to dinner Tuesday night at a friend’s home for Valentines Day as hubby Al was out-of-town, and stayed way too late talking and laughing, Thursday I got in a good workout with a friend and again on Friday too, another hour and a half chalked up!
On Saturday morning I had a baby shower to attend and then I met a friend for lunch. I picked up steaks for dinner as Al came home late yesterday afternoon. We caught up on the Survivor episode from this last week and three Modern Family Episodes. It is good to have him home. 😀
As for today I have church this morning, I am hitting the Group Power Class at 12:30 and at 6 pm I play floor hockey. I am working hard to keep up the work out momentum… I need to, as the bike rides and events will be here before I know it! 😀
Good morning! 😀 It has been three weeks since Al has been mostly away on a job but today he will be returning home. I found out a couple of days ago while texting him while I was going in the local library… it went like this:
Me: How’s the job going?
Al: Possibly done tomorrow then start moving equipment out on Saturday.
Earlier this week I mentioned I had an awards event to go to… I even gave you a hint…
What I went to was the Annual Kidventure Awards at our church. This is a night to honor those who have volunteered in the past year. We were encouraged to wear either red, yellow, or orange…. a trip to our local Good Will in December helped me find what I was planning…
It was a lot of fun, about 60 people were there and when they voted for best dressed… I took best female and Craig (dressed in a one piece long john thing) won best dressed for the men. Oh the things I do….LOL
Today I have a baby shower this morning and a lunch date with a friend. This afternoon I hope to get in a little reading time, it’s been lacking this week. Late afternoon, Al should be home. 😀
Good morning! Yes I was MIA yesterday. And yes I Mean MIA – as there was ACTION. I have had a busy evening every night since Sunday. Something to know about me… I don’t function well without *”crash breaks.”
*crash break: A day when I do nothing more than laundry, reading, dusting, reading, and maybe dishes. Maybe. Thus re-energizing to go again on another day!
So here is what happens when I do blog and I am not focused (an hopefully this makes sense because it s a little “who’s on firsty” (YES…. firsty is a word. MY WORD.) 😛
Ok…. so a couple of days ago I posted a book blogger video that was about what book bloggers say…. one of the words that was said in the vlog was “awesome sauce”.
Ryan from My Life In Books left a comment saying he’s never heard someone say “awesome sauce” and maybe he should try it. My sleep deprived mind, thought the comment was from Ryan from Wordsmithonia. I have chatted with Ryan (Wordsmithonia) for years and so seeing the comment and thinking it was from him, I challenged him to use the word “awesome sauce” in a review this week.
THEN (and here is where it gets crazy) I clicked on his name, went on Ryan (My Life In Books) blog and let him know I challenged him, STILL not realizing I was on the wrong blog and the wrong Ryan. 😯
So today Ryan (My Life In Books) leaves me a comment that he has fulfilled the challenge. Now having caught up fully on my sleep I clicked on his name to go see how he used the word in his review. Once on his blog I was surprised by the look of it. I thought, “did Ryan change his blog layout?” and then… because maybe I am not as caught up on my sleep as I thought, “Did Ryan also change the name of his blog?”
Yup… its true… not always the sharpest knife in the drawer…
Then… it hit me. Wrong Ryan. 😯
To sum it up – Thank you Ryan from My Life In Books for responding to a challenge from someone you probably don’t really know and probably thought “ok crazy book blogger girl….” and thank you Ryan from Wordsmithonia who is just getting looped into this craziness this morning. You are both pretty awesome for putting up with me. 😀
Good morning!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentines Day! I really did. Al is still out-of-town but he sent me a lovely dozen assorted colored roses to my work yesterday…. “ahhhhhhhh”
Then last night I had dinner over at friends of ours homes which was a lot of fun. I went over early to chat with my friend Amy, I brought a bottle of wine and dessert and she made stuffed shells which were delicious! It was really a nice evening and we ate and talked and it was really kind of nice. Her husband Chad and their older daughter joined us at the table and by the time I pulled out of their driveway I was shocked to see it was going on 10 pm. I never meet to stay that long but apparently the conversation was just what I needed. (Thanks friends!)
In staying with Reagans week of Book Blogger Reader Appreciation this week. her question on the table was what significant moment have we had in out blogging life… I think like a defining moment. For me that has to be BEA.
The Book Expo was a new thing to me. Apparently Brainerd Minnesota is placed directly under a large rock and I had never heard of such a thing. An event for book lover…. publishers, authors, and book bloggers all meet in one amazing week in New York. KNow what else was new to me?
New York.
I don’t have a lot of time to give you the story I would like to this morning as I am currently typing on borrowed time but I have to say that BEA was a defining moment in this bloggers life. People you commented with on-line…. were there in the flesh. AND most impressive to me, they were exactly like they were on-line. REAL PEOPLE. I chalk that up to being readers…. we are real.. 3 dimensional. There was not one person that I thought “wow, they are so different from I thought they would be”.
Meeting people whose blogs you enjoy is wonderful. It strengthened the community for me. It gave me new people to read and follow. We had meals together, we went to book parties together… a dream really… a dream come true.
I wish I could say more and I wish I could add some pictures of the experience but I prepped none of this last night. I came home, I went to bed. 😀
Do you have a defining moment on your blogging life? Share it here… and be sure to check out Reagans week of events and posts she has going on over at Miss Remmers Reviews.
Book Journey 