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.

Valentine's Day on a Budget

Hubby and I celebrated Valentine's Day yesterday. Neither of us had gone shopping yet so we went together to the mart of wal. I threw a bag of Reese's cups in the cart and I was done. It is my hubby's favorite candy of all time. No need for a fancy box. He just wants the candy. He insisted on buying me some flowers but I was happy that they were less expensive ones from that store than the ones he usually gets at the florist. I always ask him to not buy me flowers on V-day as they cost too much but he always does anyway. He got me the bear because he knows that I don't need the temptation of candy right now. I'm involved in a Biggest Loser competition at work.

Then on to Valentine cards. I don't know about you but I think five bucks is too much to spend on cards. I would have made one at home but ran out of time. My mom had told me once that she and her sister would go to the store together and pick out cards for each other. They would exchange the cards right there in the store and then set them back on the shelf. (Of course they didn't sign them, it was the thought that counts) So we did that. I picked out my favorite card for him and he did the same for me. We exchanged the cards. Read them. Put them back on the shelf. Total Cost. $0.

After the shopping we went to dinner. Due to a conveniently timed birthday of hubby, we had a free dinner coupon to Red Robin. I had signed up for their club and they sent hubby a belated gift. He loves their 5 Alarm Burger and my favorite is the Whisky River BBQ Wrap. Since it was a birthday coupon, the waitress brought us a desert to share. Total for dinner was $10.77 + tip.

Next up was a movie. If you go to Kerasotes website you can sign up for the $5 club. Every Thursday they send you an email of what movies are eligible for the $5 price at participating theaters. Hubby has been wanting to see Gran Torino and it was on the list this week so we both got to see the movie for $10.

We had a great night out and felt really good about not spending a fortune on gifts and cards that we really don't need.

January 15, 2009

So here it is, the middle of January and no updates from me all month. Do you know why?

NOTHING IS HAPPENING AROUND HERE!!!!

I go to work every day. (if there is school that is) School started back on January 5. January 6 we were cancelled because of ice. Back to work on the 7th. Today? No school because of frigid temps. No ice. No snow. But way below zero wind chills. Tomorrow is still undecided. Monday will be a holiday, so no school then.

We have made a couple of trips to the airport. One to drop off my mom, who took her first flight ever. Solo, at age 65. She flew off to visit her sister and enjoyed it very much. Another trip was to pick up the wife of my husband's cousin. The cousin had thought the flight arrived at 12 midnight and his wife arrived at 12 noon. He is several hours away and was still at work. So we picked her up and brought her here until he could get away. Next week we will go back to the airport again to pick up my mom.

I have not been shopping at all except for one or two trips to the grocery store for much needed items. I have gift cards from Christmas but have no desire to go to the stores. I think I am in full hibernation mode. I just want to stay in my house in my jammies and watch TV and play on my computer.

Today's plan is to type a few more chapters of my Dad's book and get some pictures scanned and edited for that. We have a hopeful completion date for March 30(ish). Dad is still writing but hopes to be done by next week when he comes to pick Mom up. Then it is up to me to get everything typed and pictures ready so we can get everything compiled and submitted. We hope to have the completed books in hand by June 1.

This weekend is the final deer hunting weekend of the season so we will be traveling to my son's house for me to play with the kids and hubby to go to the woods if it isn't too cold. Then back to the same old, same old.

January 1, 2009

Had a nice New Year's Eve. My son, daughter-in-law and my baby grandson came and spent the night. We had a nice dinner at Applebees and then played Wii Monopoly most of the evening. Drank some nice wine and celebrated midnight with a champagne toast. We were all in bed by 12:30. We got up late this morning and had bacon and pancakes for breakfast. Played another round of Monopoly and some Wii Fit. The baby and I did the hula hoop part and everyone else thought it would be fun to video tape me. You couldn't see the baby in the tape. Just the back of my body. The kids all left to do some shopping on their way home and hubby and I are just hanging around for the rest of the day trying not to do anything that takes any exertion.

Happy New Year!!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I put our tree up over a couple of days. One day the lights and the next day the ornaments. I wasn't home over a weekend so I had to do it in the evenings after work. We won't have much company this year so I didn't decorate the rest of the house. My son will be hosting Christmas at his house for the first time.

It took many takes to get this picture with the lights all lit up. My flash made it too bright and you thought it was daytime with no lights. Then when I turned the flash off, it was too dark. Also, the star is flashing, so I had to time that right so it was lit in the picture.



Here is our attempt at a Christmas photo. It was the first time I used the tripod and only the second time I used the delay timer. There were many outtakes. My dear husband likes to be silly. I never did get one that I really liked but these will do. These pics are all SOOC. I have not had time to tweak them. We were dressed to go to my work Christmas party, so I decided to take advantage of the situation and try to get a good picture of us.


Here are my favorite ornaments. My dad carves an ornament every year for each couple and each child in the family. The current total right now is 14 just to cover family members. Then he makes extra because of extended family and friends that always want to buy some of them. He does great work and I did not inherit one bit of his artistic ability. This year's ornament is the Christmas tree in the bottom corner of the picture. I have been the keeper of my kids' ornaments for years. When each one gets married or moves out, I pack their ornaments up and give them their box. This year I boxed up the ornaments for my last daughter. The tree looks different without all of the had carved ornaments on there.

This weekend has been spent shopping, wrapping and baking. Today I started some red velvet bon bons that will have to be finished tomorrow. I also made chocolate and peanut butter fudge. I will have to make another batch of peanut butter fudge because my husband will eat all of this one long before Christmas. He has no will power over peanut butter. The shopping is going great and I only have a couple of small gifts left to buy.

Tomorrow I hope to go to my son's house to have Christmas with my daughter who is here from out of state. Mother Nature may have other plans. We are anticipating icy roads and frigid temps and it is too far to go if that is the case. The alternate plan is to finish wrapping gifts and to dip the bon bons. I also have many Christmas books that would love to get some attention. That will be a different post.

Winter

So, I'm almost ready for work this morning. I think I'll go outside and start my car and then come in and make my lunch while it warms up. I don't remember the temp but suffice it to say it was c-c-c-coooollllldddd. So, I go out the door, reach into the car to start it and change all the dials so the SNOW! will melt off of the window. I flip the little switch that will make my seat all nice and cozy for me and head back to the house. Stuck. the little button on the screen door is frozen. I can't get back into the house. I go turn off my car, walk around to the back of the house to let myself in the back door with the key. Stuck again. The key turns, the knob turns but the door won't open. Finally it dawns on me that my husband locked the dead bolt to protect me while he is gone deer hunting. Then I go back through the front door, making sure it doesn't close all the way and start my car all over again.

OK, make my lunch, get in my still frigid car, since it didn't have as many minutes to warm up, and take off. First stop is the ATM machine. I pull up to the little screen and: Stuck. The windows on my car are frozen shut. I cant roll any of them down. Well, I decide that if I have to get out of the car anyway, I'll just go inside to get my money. Next stop. McDonald's. Windows still frozen so I have to get out and go inside for my sweet tea and cinnamon melt. I almost fall on my fanny going into McDonald's because of the ice on the parking lot.

I decide to wait until after work to fill up the car because it is so cold. Gas went from $1.63 this morning to $1.79 this afternoon. Crap. I should have filled up yesterday.

Don't you just love winter?

Best Shot(s) Monday and Weekend update

I had a very nice weekend. I got to babysit my new grandson on Saturday so his parents could go to work. Then I got to spend the day Sunday visiting with three of my grandkids. I also was able to finish the book I was reading and start another while I was there. The book I finished was Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie. It was a very good page turner. Next, I started Cutting Loose by Susan Anderson. I am only a couple chapters in but it seems like it will be good also.

Here is a shot of my dirty faced youngest granddaughter and her dirty faced doll. She had just arrived home from her dad's house when I got there and hadn't had her bath yet.


Here is my new grandson and his big sister. He was one month old that day. It took several shots to get them both with their eyes open and nobody crying. LOL He was a sleepy guy and she isn't very comfortable holding him yet.

Here are some action shots. She is jumping on a trampoline that I got her for Christmas. She could jump much higher than this. She was a wild child on this thing.

And here is another action shot. Every time grandpa tried to let her go, she let go too. She wouldn't hang there by herself. She was being silly and this shot caught her laughing about it.

We also spent some time coloring. I got the girls coloring books and crayons instead of candy for Halloween since I wasn't going to see them until Sunday. I figured they would have had enough sugar by then. They both love to color so that was a big hit.

The time change caught up with me Sunday night. I dozed through the season finale of Army Wives so I will have to catch up on the computer. Then I was up at 4:30 this morning. I hope to get this worked out soon.

More later.

Tina

Better

I am feeling much better. I went to work yesterday and did fine all day. However, when I got home I napped on the couch until around 7 pm. Then I dozed through Boston Legal and went to bed by 10:05. I guess I wasn't quite as recovered as I thought. So now I'm up and ready to begin a new day.

I had hoped to have a new Tackle-it-Tuesday for today but after my illness, it will have to wait until next week.

Sick

I am sick. At first I thought it was just allergies bothering me. With the sniffles, drippy nose, sneezing, etc. I wasn't feeling exceptionally bad. But the histamine thing was driving me bonkers. So I dug out the allergy medicine and took it..... Nothing. Still the same symptoms. So I moved on to Benadryl. That helped a little and made me extremely sleepy. I hate the nose dripping. I hate sitting around with a tissue permanently in my hand. I spent all day yesterday on the couch, alternately blowing my nose and napping. I did manage to read a few articles in a magazine and watch much television. This morning seems a little better on the dripping side but now there is congestion moving in. The worst part of the whole thing is that I didn't get to go visit with my grand kids this weekend. I'll spend today taking it easy and taking more medicine so I can make it to work Monday. I really need to be typing more chapters of my dad's book. Hopefully I will feel better this afternoon so I can get busy on that.

CLR Bath & Kitchen Cleaner

I recieved my bottle of CLR Bath and Kitchen cleaner in the mail one afternoon. I took it out of the box and showed it to my curious husband. He was happy to see it as he had been interested in trying CLR and had never had the chance. Before I had time to take any before pictures of the bathtub that I was planning to try it out on, he was in there with the CLR and a sponge. Our bathtub had a lot of what I thought was stains in it. I would clean it with scrubbing bubbles and it never seemed to come clean. The CLR worked much better. He scrubbed it two different times and it was whiter than we have ever seen it. (We have lived in this old house for 3 years.) It cut through very old water stains. We are very happy with the results. I will definately keep CLR Bath and Kitchen cleaner around to keep that bathtub clean and shiny.

Anyway, I had to find a new project so I could try out the CLR. We have this ancient utility sink in the basement. We don't use it for anything but to drain our washer. I have been thinking about cleaning it up since we moved in but it was way down a long list of priorities. So, I took the CLR down there and went to work. Here is the before.

This sink has dirt, grime, rust, paint, and many unknown things in it. It has not been scrubbed in years but does have water running through it daily.

Here is the after.

This may not look like a good commercial for CLR Bath and Kitchen cleaner but I think it is. It took off way more than I thought was possible. I only had time to scrub it once and I didn't exert too much energy. Some of the spots are paint and will need to be scraped off. But lots of the rust is gone and all of the scum.

I highly recommend the CLR Bath and Kitchen cleaner. I think it works great.

MORE magazines

I am at my son's house for the weekend, helping out with the baby and the house while my daughter-in-law recovers from an illness. I am enjoying cuddling my 2 week old grandson very much.

I brought a pile of magazines with me to read in the down time. See this post about my magazine issues. I am currently reading the September issues of all the magazines on my list. Not too bad until you consider that the November issues are arriving as we speak. Anyway, I have come to the conclusion that I can downsize my collection by one. I have not subscribed to MORE for very long. I liked the idea that it was geared to the over 40 woman. But upon reading the July/August issue yesterday, I just don't think it is the magazine for me. I didn't enjoy many of the articles. Mostly I skimmed them for interesting tidbits. The fashion pages were full of very pricy items. Who can afford $2,700 for a handbag? So the verdict is in, and MORE is on it's way out.

Edited to add that I will also not be renewing my subscription to Discover. It is probably a fine magazine. I got it because I thought my husband might like it. He never picks them up. I occasionally thumb through them but I have so many other magazines that I like that I can't keep up with. So Discover is also on it's way out.