Tag: Morning Meanderings

Good morning.

As you probably can imagine from yesterdays post that I am beyond heartbroken over the loss of our pet (friend, companion) Elmo.  I get that this is going to be a slow process, I knew someday I would be writing the post that I did, but I did not anticipate this level of pain.

Yesterday was a busy day which was probably a good thing.  I am going to Honduras on November 5 – November 11 and two of the guys on the team are from the Ukraine.  Dima is 28 and a Pastor in the Ukraine and he is here for the first time in the United States staying with our Pastor through Thanksgiving who met him many years ago when he was in Ukraine on a mission trip.  Dima speaks little english.  Boris is 25 and Dima’s interpreter. Yesterday I took both of them in to get their shots for the Honduras trip.  It was kind of fun (and a great distraction from life) to go and assist them with the paperwork.  They say our hospital is nothing like the hospitals in Ukraine.

They are both extremely nice and I am excited to see them on this Honduras trip with us. 

Today I work (also good) and tonight I have dinner with friends for a long overdue baby shower get together.  (also good).

I have reviews to post and books to read and while life is difficult right now to say the least, I know that I need to move ahead.  Thank you all who sent kind words… while its hard for me to talk about, I really do appreciate every comment and it means the world to me to have all your kind support.

Good morning.

A little heavy hearted this morning as I write this. 

Our dog (companion, friend…) of 15 year has been struggling lately with his breathing off and on.  I think he has tumors in his throat, I feel little marble size lumps.  Yesterday afternoon when it was dinner time he would not eat which forced me to do the thing I have been dreading… call our vet.

We have an appointment for this afternoon at 4:40 and I am trying to be optimistic…. knowing very well the odds are against me.  I have pretty much turned into a teary eyed weepy version of myself.  I have never had to do this before, we live near a busy highway and all of our dogs from me growing up here to moving here with my husband, have met their demise on that highway….

Not Elmo.  Although he too has been on that road, all 8 pounds of him survived.  He is our miracle dog.

SO … that is current.  Moving on to something lighter, I worked out at Group Power yesterday morning and feel really good.  I can not wait to get back into a routine- NEED to get back into a routine. 

Today I have a busy day at work, we are cleaning a large storage area so I will be busy and keeping my mind off later today and that will be a good thing.  Bookish wise… I have not made a dent…. but audio has been flowing as I am almost done with my two current audio, Snow Flower and The Secret Fan and We The Animals.

I hope everyone has a great day 🙂

Good Morning!

I seem to have put myself into a habit of sleeping a little later and then bustling around getting ready for work….  GAH.  I don’t like that.  The craziness of life, scheduling, etc has come to a point where I feel I am in overdrive for 15+ hours a day…. crash and do it again.

What is suffering?

sleep patterns

work out priorities

probably me 😛

I am working on this… and this morning felt a little more to the norm than it has in a while.  I actually got up with time to spare.  It went like this:

1. Up, let dogs out, get ready while listening to The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian on my IPOD. 
2. COFFEE is ready and I sit at my Laptop (Asus) and pop up my emails.  FAVORITE morning email has clearly become the Shelf Awareness newsletter that pops into my email box each weekday morning at 7 am.  Seriously, if you are a book lover and are not subscribed to this newsletter; do so now (there is a link to it on my right side bar).  Not only does it has info on hot books, but also authors (not all hot but authors just the same…. ha ha), giveaways, bookstores, and more.  I love reading it!
3. Second cup of COFFEE (hello caffeine my constant friend!) while listening to the audio in my CD player in the kitchen.  Just started We The Animals by Justin Torres this morning.
4. Now – out the door with COFFEE Cup (also my traveling friend), a can of soup for lunch, and now in my jeep listening to Snow Flower And The Secret Fan by Lisa See. 

Work today, which I am normally off on Fridays but our office manager is on vacation this week and I offered to cover her Friday shift since I took a bonus day off last week for the girls weekend.  😀  Should be a quiet day in the office and then…. after three….

the weekend…

is mine.  😛

Good morning.:D
Sorry about the lack of “me” yesterday.  I just did not have any time whatsoever.  Tuesday night I wound up going to a Women’s charity event that I had forgotten I had agreed to go to months ago… while I went grumbling all the way and felt it went on later than I had hoped… I really did have a good time. 

Between that event and the fact that our 15-year-old shih-tsu has been having some heart wrenching breathing troubles at night… my sleep has been odd and sporadic.  I woke up yesterday morning after a pretty much sleepless night worrying about our dog, on ly to discover it was 7:30 am and I work at 8:00 am…

Uhhh yeah… no morning post.  When I came home in the after noon from work and had a book review post to write I instead fell asleep in the recliner.  GAH.

A couple of weeks ago I was selected to be a judge in the Inspy Awards under the mystery/thriller genre.  I am so excited to be a part of this!  The five books I need to read and review are:

Back on Murder by J. Mark Bertrand, Bethany House, July, 2010

Darkness Follows by Mike Dellosso, Realms, May, 2011

Digitalis by Ronie Kendig, Barbour, January, 2011

Over the Edge by Brandilyn Collins, B&H Publishing, May, 2011

The Bishop by Steven James, Revell, August, 2010

I am pretty excited (oops I said that already!) and hope that if you enjoy faith driven reads you will check out the entire list of books up for nomination at the Inspy site.  You can also see the other judges there .

In one more crazy thought for the day… remember when I lost Monsters Of Men?  Then I blogged about where I found Monsters Of Men?  Well…. when I blogged about it, I put the book back where I had found it so I could take the picture for the post.  THEN… I spent yesterday looking for the book AGAIN.  Guess where it was?  Yes – back on the shelf where I put it for the picture. 

Seriously…. who does this?  😛

Good morning COFFEE people!  😛  Ok, ok, none coffee people too but really I figured only coffee people are up at the crack of dawn like we are all hopped up on caffeine….

(maybe…. that’s just me…)

On Thursday morning of this past week I was tearing through my home looking for my copy of Patrick Ness’ Monsters Of Men book to take to the cabin with me.  This search was to no avail and left me imaging all sorts of fates for the lost book:

1.  I had it on the table during our recent book club book sale and someone snatched it up for $1.00

2.  I used it for a prop to put my camera on during banned book week

3.  I had it is my car and somehow it fell out

4.  Last week Joey from the magazine article was over for a picture of the library and when I was straightening up, I placed the book in with the others (in this case…. forever lost…. ha ha)

5. Clearly someone broke into my home and stole it

So yesterday afternoon when I came home from work I wanted to read a bit but did not want to start the book club book… no I wanted my Monsters Of Men.  I did another search and then in the library I looked up where I keep all of my have read and am keeping book sets and there it was!

AHHHHHH!!!! 

Crazy that I found it where it really should have been all along.  😛

This is not the first book I have lost…. last year I lost ROOM in mid-read which was awful.  Does this ever happen to you?  (I am secretly hoping it does so I am not alone in my bookish insanity….)  😀

I arrived back home from our girls craft weekend last night about 9:00 pm.  I already have ran to Church this morning, have a baby shower I am helping with at 2:00 pm and a dinner commitment at 5 pm…. but had to pop in with an update 😀

We really had a good time over the last couple of days hanging out, laughing, and crafting. We actually crafted from noon on Friday until 10 pm at night – only stopping because we all agreed to shut down the activity and go watch a movie together.  Of course we were back at it Saturday morning…

So much fun!  I have never used a Cri-cut before but of course now… I want one.  Thankfully Sara’s mom had about 30 of the Cri-cut cartridges so we were able tobe really creative – here is some of what we came up with in the end:

That was the weekend!  Great time with the girls and were planning on doing it again in January after the craziness of the holidays.  😀

Reading was minimal – we were up talking until 2:30 in the morning on Friday night (Saturday morning really) … however I have finished Night Circus and hope to have that review up today.  😀

Good morning!  😀

I am drinking tea this morning as I don’t want to make a whole pot of coffee.  No, I am not sick.  😛

I am heading to the cabin in a few hours here for a girls crafting weekend – MUCH NEEDED GET AWAY!

The past two weeks have been crazy busy, a lot of multi tasking day and night and this has been my “eye on the reward”.  😀

It will be me, Amy, Sara, and Cindy and we are doing words on tiles which excites me to no end!  (I never seem to run out of words.  We will be staying in having chili tomorrow night and fajitas on Saturday.  We are probably heading back this way late Saturday evening.

For the most part I will be unplugged… no internet service at the cabin and since this is an “in house” event – I suspect I would be frowned upon if I were to sneak out in the morning to my usual coffee shop haunt to write posts.  😯

In my once organized world I would have had posts up and reviews, but I am caught up on reviews unless Don’t Blink on audio finishes up today while I run errands this morning and then I do not think I will have time to write it.

I was up at 5 am, packed, prepped a package that must (MUST!) go int the mail today, searching for my copy of Monsters and Men for the trip, next I am grocery shopping, post office, and I would like to make one more stop at the re-store for tiles – which my friends think is hilarious as I have a stock pile of tile… but, you know when they run out miles away from a store… I am going to up sell them 😀

Any weekend plans for you?

Good morning!  😀

I thought my week was going to be a bit more mellow.  I was wrong… but in a good way.  😀  Monday was insane and Tuesday… well Tuesday was Book Club.  😀

If you are a regular reader of Book Journey, you certainly have heard me brag up the Bookies… well… fair warning… I am about to do it again.  😛

What is not to love about a book club that goes the extra mile?  Puts a little “oomf” into the reviews with background information, printouts, and yeah… the occasional dress up too. 

Last night we reviewed our October Classic pick:  Pride and Prejudice.  To spice the review up we encouraged everyone to wear hats, and for those who wanted to go the extra mile – dress the Regency period.  Two of the gals that for sure were going to dress up with me wound up having to play in a kick ball tournament Tuesday night and unable to attend.  I thought for sure I would be the only one who was really getting into the book….

Oh yea of little faith Sheila….

I walked into our restaurant we were meeting at and there were the Bookies, most in hats, and a few that dressed the full era.  Ahhh…. I lobe my book club.

Here is a sample of whats to come… more pics will be up later today with my review and the Bookies review of Pride and Prejudice.  (Next month we are reading Cleopatra… hmmm…… )

Good morning!  😛

Mmm…. COFFEE CUP and I are enjoying a quiet start to the day.  Crazy how dark it is now at 7:06 am… gah… I am not looking forward to the coming season. 

My original plan this morning was to get up early and hit the gym… I have decided the only time I can guarantee is free time for me (non scheduled) is the hours between 5 and 7 a.m.  Well, yesterday I went to Group Power with my friend Wendy for the first time in months – pretty much pre-injury in June.  Lets just say it is not a good sign when you start hurting DURING class….  😯

So yeah… today I hurt… but it is a good hurt.  AND I will hit the gym tomorrow morning.

If you were reading my meanderings at the end of last week I was sharing that my book club was reading Pride and Prejudice for our annual Classic Read in October.  As of Friday… I had not opened the book, but being optimistic… I had a plan to get it done before B- Day (Book Day) which is uhhh… errrr…..

today.

The plan was a simple math one:  375 pages.  I had three days – Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  That’s 125 pages a day.  Doable?  Yes.  If I could dedicate 3 hours each day to reading it would be an average of 41.6 pages an hour.  I would even have time to grab a cup of coffee!  😛  Really it was only 1.4 pages a minute.    See…. doable.  😀

So…. did I do it?

Ummmm….

not yet.

As it seems to go with us readers, life happened and I think I actually spent more time listening to audio this weekend while I cooked and cleaned than I did reading. 

Will I be done by our 6:30 meeting tonight?  I think so… or I will be close.  I am over 100 pages short right now, but should have an hour to an hour and a half to read before I go tonight.  I will just have to skip the coffee… 😀

Do you have any book deadlines to share?  Funny moments where you are trying to squeeze more reading into your day?