Reading Challenges

Last July I decided to commit myself to an A to Z reading challenge. You can read my post here. I was supposed to finish it before the end of the 2009. FAIL. I kind of lost interest in reading for a while last fall and really haven't gotten my reading habit back to normal. I haven't updated that list since August and honestly I doubt if any of the handful of books I have read since then fit into the remaining letters. So, I am recommitting myself to that challenge today. I will finish, hopefully by summer.

In addition, I have found another reading challenge that I'd like to try. You can read about it here.

Although my desire is to join as "Super-size me," Realistically I am going to commit to "Just My Size." I love to go to the library and I usually read about 4 to 6 books every two weeks in the summer. I am optimistic that my slump will be over by then. I plan to incorportate the remaining A to Z books into this challenge also so I can complete both challenges at once.

Wish me luck.

Three holidays in one post...

Yeah, well.... January 16 and I haven't written since November. I guess I just haven't figured out yet how to be a blogger. My kids are grown and my grandkids don't live close so they don't give me daily blog topics. I just don't know the direction that this blog should go. I want to write, I just don't know what.

Anyway, catching up. Thanksgiving was great. All of the family went to my brother's house and had a great meal, eating too much. My dad unveiled his annual ornament. He carves an ornament for each member of the family every year. This time it is a mouse. You can see the previous years' ornaments here.

So, December. December was a whirlwind of working, shopping, baking, etc. I did get all of the shopping done in record time and only had to wrap a couple of gifts on Christmas morning. Sometime during the month, I took two of my granddaughters to see the Princess and the Frog movie. It was fun and we only had to go to the bathroom FOUR times. LOL They fought like sisters in the car but were great in the movie. After the movie I managed to get them both to stand and smile for this picture. That was an amazing feat!

For Christmas we again went to my brother's house and ate too much, had a shower of wrapping paper as everyone opened their gifts at the same time, and enjoyed watching the little ones play. We claim to have had a white Christmas as this picture shows.

That brings us to New Year's. My son and his family spent the eve with us. They brought the Wii and we played bowling after the kiddos went to bed. One of them decided to get back up to watch the ball drop.

We spent New Year's Day working out on Wii fit, going to a nice lunch at Applebee's, and hanging out at home.

January. Went back to work. Worked 3 days and then had a nice snow that closed school for two days. I did enjoy those snow days. There were many days of frigid temps and I stayed home (and in my jammies) as much as possible.

No New Year's Resolutions here. I never keep them and rarely make them. I do always think about exercise and shaping up in January and I often try to get started. Hopefully this will be the year that it sticks.

Posts coming up ...... Kids and grandkids visiting from out of state, update of my A to Z reading challenge, a new reading challenge for this year and whatever else I can think of to write about.

Happy Thanksgiving

Just a quick post to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. I only have to cook one dish today for a trip to my brother's house. Then I'm cooking a nice dinner here tomorrow for some other family.

I wish everyone a great day, a great dinner and a great nap!

Chapter Books

So I go into our handy neighborhood K-mart to buy a birthday gift for a coworker. After wandering around aimlessly for a while I settle on a nice candle set and then proceed to the important stuff - books. I don't shop at K-mart often and in the mad rush to put out Christmas items, they have moved the book aisle.

Since my husband is waiting patiently in the car I decide to save some time and ask where the books are so that I don't have to do another lap or two of the store. I find a nice helpful young man and ask, "Could you tell me where the paperback books are, please?" His response is a blank look and, "Explain that to me, please." Very politely I might add. I say, "You know, books. books that you read. Novels." The light bulb went on in his head and he replies, "OH, you mean chapter books," and points the way.

So the moral of this story is that if you are ever in K-mart and would like something to read, ask for the "chapter books" section, not the "paperback book section"

Book News and random stuff

I started Everlasting by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss a couple of days ago. I haven't had much time to read but I am on chapter two so far. The first chapter was a little hard. I was reading during commercials of some show or other and wasn't devoting enough attention to detail in the book. But now I am thinking that I might be able to get into it. Maybe the slump is over. I sure hope so. This is the longest I have gone in a very long time without reading any books.

In other news, hubby took me out to our favorite Chinese Buffet last night. Great food, good company. It was a nice evening. Then we came home and watched Survivor and Grey's Anatomy. I fell asleep during Private Practice. I just can't stay awake past 9 but then I am up at 4 or 4:30. It is a vicious cycle. I hope to get over that this weekend as well.

It has been a long week at work and I am ready for the weekend.

Looking forward to the weekend

This weekend promises to be sunny and 70. I can't wait. I have no plans except to maybe sit out on the deck and try to overcome my reading slump. Have a huge TBR pile, surely something will call out to me.

Pizza on Tuesday

I love reality TV. Currently, I watch Amazing Race, Survivor, Biggest Loser and Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders Making the Team. I also watch Big Brother, American Idol, Can You Duet, Dance Your Ass Off and probably some others that I can't think of right now when they are on. Mostly my husband watches along with me. He doesn't really like most of the shows but he tolerates them. But he HATES!!! The Biggest Loser. He just doesn't like that show. It is on for two hours every Tuesday night and he can't stand it. BUT, he does love homemade pizza. It is his favorite thing that I make. So every Tuesday has become pizza night at our house. I guess you could call it a bribe. I make pizza, he sits through Biggest Loser. Well, usually he finds something else to do during the show like nap, play on the computer or mess around in the garage.

I just find it amusing that we sit around and stuff ourselves with pizza while watching a show about losing weight.

Lovin' the time change (and the sun!)

Fall is normally my favorite season but after having 20 out of 31 days of October be dreary and rainy and dark, the time has changed and the sun has come back. I was having a hard time most of last month wanting to get up and go to work or do anything around the house for that matter. But since this weekend with the rain ending for a while, the time changing so I actually need my sunglasses to drive to work, (and did I mention the sun shining?) I have felt soooo much better.

I went grocery shopping early Sunday morning and proceeded to make a nice dinner that evening. (Don't ask how often I cook. With just hubby and I here we tend to eat out or fend for ourselves often.) Yesterday I jumped right out of bed and put some stew meat in the crock-pot. I had a wonderful day at work. Then I came home to do laundry and roll out some homemade noodles to make beef and noodles with the stew meat.

Today I only work a half day because of an appointment later and the sun is forecast to shine again. I am anticipating a beautiful day!

Here is a pic from earlier in the month that makes me smile. It is my grandson's first visit to the pumpkin patch. It is also his first birthday.

Best Shot Monday

A self portrait, taken at Johnson Shut-Ins Park in Missouri. This was the best of several shots, even if it is a little crooked.

Stuck

I don't think I have picked up a book in weeks. Well, that's not entirely true. I have picked them up. I have even read a couple of pages. Then I put them back down.

(The previous sentence was written on 10/09/09, then, I sent this post to my draft folder. The following is a continuation of that.)

OK, so I did read one book in October. It was The Gatecrasher by Madeleine Wickham. I don't know if it was just a so-so book or a casualty of my reading slump. At least I did finish it.

In other news, I am still picking up books and putting them back down. It all started with Julie and Julia. I started reading it and I just really never got into it. I did get about halfway through and I just put it down and gave up for a while. Then I could just not get into anything else. I don't know if I need to go back and force myself to finish so I can enjoy reading again or just give up and let my desire to read come back naturally.

I have been reading some of the huge pile of magazines that I have. I am letting all subscriptions expire and then will only resubscribe if I get a really good deal on a magazine that I know I love.

Also, I think the DVR may have a detrimental effect on my reading as well. Now that I can automatically record every soap and reality show that I might like I spend a lot of time catching up. Maybe I need to cancel some shows from recording and spend that time doing something more productive.

The ABC's of books

I am not doing very well on the A to Z challenge. I started out very well and thought I would be finished by now but I got sidetracked by a series of books that unfortunately didn't start with all of the right letters. I read one of the Elm Creek Quilt series by Jennifer Chiaverini and decided that I must go back and start at the first book and read them all. Well, I haven't finished all of them yet but I have read 10. They are very good books.

Then, it was my birthday last week and I went shopping for all of the free stuff that I got emails for. There were pearl earrings from Helzburg Diamonds, a $10 gift card from Victoria Secret, a free burger from Red Robin and a 15% off coupon from Kohls. While I was doing all of that anyway, I thought it might be a good idea to use the Barnes and Noble gift card that I had received for Christmas last year. We don't have a bookstore in our local mall anymore so I have to travel to a town 30 miles away to get my hands on books and I just hadn't had time to browse yet. I ended up with 4 new books there, that again don't fit the missing letters of my challenge.

I know you are wondering so here they are:

• On Agate Hill by Lee Smith (my current read and I am enjoying it)
• Everlasting by Kathleen E. Woodwiss
• The Gatecrasher by Madeleine Wickham
• Julie and Julia by Julie Powell (I prefer to read the book before I see the movie)

Today I acquired a new bookshelf to put in the spare room and loaded many paperbacks onto it that had been in piles on the living room floor AND unpacked two boxes of books from when we moved here 4 years ago. Seeing all of those familiar books that I haven't read yet has me itching to get started on some of them.

So, the plan is to finish my current book and then take inventory of all the books around here and make a list of ones that will fit in with my missing letters and try to get started on those. When I get them together, I'll post the list here to make me accountable for getting them read before the end of the year.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, It's back to work I go...

Today is the first day of school. I am excited to see kids again and have people to talk too. I'm pretty happy about my schedule this year. I am not excited about how tired I'll be at the end of each day for a while. After-school naps will be resuming today.

Summer winding down

I go back to work next week. There will be lots of changes to the program and new students to get used to. I look forward to it as I mourn the end of the summer break.

We had a nice summer. Trips to Mississippi and Georgia and a weekend in Branson, MO. Lots of birthdays and hubby and my 3rd anniversary. Lots of time with family. Many, many, many library books were read. I would say success for the summer although there is a long list of projects that didn't get started, let alone finished. There wasn't money in the budget for many of the home improvement projects that we wanted to do. But we relaxed and enjoyed each other and didn't stress too much about things.

Along with school starting will be the resuming of paychecks for me and that will be very welcome. Hubby's business has been slow this summer and we spent a lot of time at home, not shopping and going like we would have liked.

The much hoped for weight loss didn't happen this summer. Actually it went the wrong way by a few pounds. I am hopeful that the activity from work and less time to snack will reverse that trend.

So I will spend the next few days trying to clean the house in expectation of being too tired to do it for a few days. I will stock up on groceries including easy dinners to make and things with which to brown bag my lunches. I will try to squeeze in a couple more books and catch up on the magazines that are stacked up. Hubby and I will determine if we can sqeeze out the funds for one last trip that means a lot to my step-daughter. And I will mentally prepare myself for back-to-school and the joys and tribulations that come along with that.

Reading A to Z

*Updated August 1, 2009. New additions are in red. Sorry they aren't linked. I'll try to do that next time I update.

I found an A to Z reading challenge on My Round File that I wanted to try. It is too late in the year to join the official challenge but I decided to do it on my own for this year and join officially next year. I went back into my library reading log and used only books that I have checked out and read since January 1, 2009. Here is where I am so far:

A An Accomplished Woman - Jude Morgan
B Building a Home with my Husband - Rachel Simon
C Cooking and Screaming - Adrienne Kane
D The Duggars: 20 and Counting
E Every Good and Perfect Gift
F The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton
G Galway Bay - Mary Pat Kelly
H Home Safe - Elizabeth Berg
I It Sucked and then I Cried - Heather B. Armstrong
J Just when I thought I'd Dropped my Last Egg - Kathie Lee Gifford
K
L Lessons in Heartbreak - Cathy Kelly
M Miss Harper Can Do It - Jane Berentson
N
O One for the Money - Janet Evanovich
P A Proper Education for Girls - Elaine di Rolla
Q The Quilter's Apprentice
R Reunion - Therese Fowler
S Shifting Fog - Kate Morton
T
U
V
W Where the Heart Leads - Kim Vogel Sawyer
X
Y
Z

Not too bad since I didn't know I was doing this challenge at the time. LOL I have ready many other books that duplicated some letters. If I had started this earlier I would have been almost finished.

I have a trip to the library planned for this afternoon. I won't restrict myself to books that I need for this challenge but I do hope to find some good ones that fit.

Books, Books and more heavy Books.

Hey, I finally made it to a monthly "What's on your nightstand" carnival.

I made a trip to the library yesterday since my books were due. Who knew that you could actually return books on their due date and not pay fines??? Wow, what a concept. Anyway, the closest branch of my local library is located inside a shopping mall. Do you think they could locate it near a door to the outside? NO. So I have three fairly heavy books, because I like big thick books, and there is no book drop on the outside either so I have to carry them all the way through the mall. The entire time I am thinking don't get so many heavy books this time.

My favorite part of the library is the shelves of new books. Unless I have something specific in mind, I don't usually get past that section. Yesterday was no exception. In no time, I had selected three books from the fiction shelves. Ok, remember I'm trying not to load up on books because I have to walk all the way back to my car and it is about 95 degrees in the parking lot. But, I do like to read biographies so I'll take a quick look over there to see what is new. Ooops! Two more books in my pile.

I often get home with books that I just can't get into so at this point I decide to sit in one of those comfy chairs over there and read a few pages of each book to see if I can narrow down my choices. Well, what do you know? Five good books, I did a good job picking for once. All five books came home with me. I survived the walk to the car and it probably doesn't hurt me a bit to carry around some extra weight anyway.

I know you are saying, "Get to the titles of the books already." So here they are:

1. Cooking and Screaming by Adrienne Kane (biography) I am a few chapters into this one and it seems really good.
2. Just When I dropped My Last Egg by Kathie Lee Gifford (biography)
3. Miss Harper Can Do It by Jane Berentson
4. Building a Home with My Husband by Rachel Simon (Edited to add that this book is non-fiction. It must have been misshelved at the library. 1/3 of the way in I am really enjoying it.)
5. The Lost Quilter by Jennifer Chiaverini

Also, I have to tell you about this other amazing book written by my very own Dad. It is a collection of short stories of his childhood growing up in the country with his five brothers and one sister in the 1940's and 1950's. He has lots of interesting stories of the escapades that they got into.

You can click the picture to enlarge so you can read the back cover.

Here is a link to the newspaper interview about the book. http://www.register-news.com/local/local_story_158200013.html

It is a really good book. If you are interested in one please leave a comment and I will contact you with the info. He self published the book so it is not currently available at bookstores.

Broken

Last weekend we were two hours away from home visiting my parents. We had picked up my 5 year old granddaughter on the way there. A couple of hours into the visit I decided I needed my camera out of the truck. I walked out to the passenger door to get the camera and saw that the bag I needed was way on the other side. Being the lazy person that I am, I closed the door to walk around rather than climb over. I started to walk around the truck and about the time I got to the back tailgate, I heard an enormous crash. It took a few seconds for the realization to hit that the back window of our 2007 Chevy Silverado had shattered and fallen out.

I went into the house to wake my napping husband and he and my dad came out to inspect the damage. It was apparent that the window had blown outward and nothing had hit it.

After I took several pictures for documentation, hubby broke the rest of the glass out and we taped plastic over the window and drove home.

We took the truck back to the dealer and left it. The next day hubby called and was told that they couldn't figure out what had happened so basically they were doing nothing. Later in the day they heard from another dealer that this wasn't the first time this had happened and they finally replaced the window under warranty. There is no recall on this glass. Luckily my granddaughter was not in the back seat of the truck when the glass broke. I just hope no one gets hurt when this happens to someone else.

May Updates

I had a very nice Mother's Day week. I met my son, daughter-in-law and grandson for dinner at Olive Garden, yummy. They gave me a nice gift bag with a card, candle and a book. You can never go wrong with books. On another day my daughter took me to Olga's and brought me flowers. That was very nice too. I received calls and emails from two step-daughters.

We took our first trip of the summer. We went to Mississippi to visit hubby's daughter. We had a great time with her and her husband. We went to a very nice little restaurant and sat on the patio to eat delicious sandwiches, took a walk of the pier and spent an afternoon at the beach. It was very relaxing.

We had wonderful weather for our outdoor fun day for our kids' last day at school. They had bikes, water tables, sandbox, bubbles, basketball and other things to play with. Then we topped it off with a gigantic ice cream buffet. All of the parents donated items and there was so much it was hard for the kids to choose.

I was happy with the way Survivor, Amazing Race and American Idol all turned out for once. It us unusual for my favorites to win in any of the shows, let alone all three.

Well, all of my shows are over for the summer and there are only three more work days before summer vacation. I hope that frees up some time to do other things, like read books. I have a huge pile of TBR books stacked in a corner of the living room. There are probably three dozen or more. Then there are still the magazines piled in the drawer. I don't think I can get any more in there.

My plan for this long weekend is to get laundry caught up, clean the bathroom and make a dent in my magazine pile. I hope to spend some time in the porch swing reading those magazines if the rain holds off.

Next weekend is another trip to Atlanta, Georgia. I get to visit with my Daughter and her family. I only get to see them a couple of times a year so I am really looking forward to it.

This Boring Blog

Ok, I am offically the most boring blogger ever! I never think of anything that sounds interesting enough to blog.

• Went to work
• made dinner
• took a nap
• wished someone would shop for me
• finally did my own shopping
• Watched Survivor/Amazing Race/American Idol/Grey's Anatomy/Biggest Loser/etc.
• Exercise to workout tape
• Gained more weight in the office Biggest Loser competition anyway
• Read another book
• took late books back to library
• Didn't read the 25 magazines that are piled up
• Did laundry but didn't put it away

Well, I have two trips planned for this month. Maybe one or both of them will be blog worthy.

Christmas in March

My friend and I finally got together this past weekend to have our annual Christmas lunch. I know, it is March but you do what you can. We had a very nice lunch at an out of the way place that didn't mind us sitting there gabbing and catching up for two and a half hours.

In my bag were two new books. My friend knows me so well. One of the books is Talk of the Town by Karen Hawkins. It looks like a fun book. The other book is A Virgin River Christmas by Robyn Carr. I collect Christmas books so this is a great addition to my collection. In addition to that, I have started reading the Virgin River series by Robyn Carr. I have read the first one, Second Chance Pass, and the second one, Temptation Ridge, is in my TBR pile. This book goes along with the series so it was very much appreciated.

I always enjoy my gifts from this friend. We have decided in interest of the economy and the trouble we have finding time to get together, that we are going to just have an ornament exchange in the future. Maybe next year we will have Christmas in February or maybe even January.

Mmmm, Popcorn

Why is it that you can eat delicious food and yummy biscuits at Cracker Barrel until you are so full you don't want to move? Then you run into Target for coffee filters, walk past the snack shop and the smell of the fresh popped popcorn makes you want to walk right over there and buy some.

In other news, WII Fit has proclaimed my new "age" to be 31! Although we won't talk about the weight it claims for me. After 5 weeks of the biggest loser contest at work, I have only managed to lose 4 pounds. With only one week left I have determined that I just donated my money. I fear that my love of eating (see cracker barrel and popcorn referenced above) has been my downfall.