BTT- The Cold, an Award and a Giveaway!

The northern hemisphere, at least, is socked in by winter right now… So, on a cold, wintry day, when you want nothing more than to curl up with a good book on the couch … what kind of reading do you want to do?

When it’s really cold, I like get into my bed, snuggle up under my warm covers, and then read.  I’m not particular about the type of book, though I don’t think I’d read anything that required me to think.  The problem I have, however, is that I always fall asleep!

read other Booking Through Thursday answers here 🙂

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I’d like to say thank you to Reagan at Miss Remmers’ Reviews for my first award for 2010.  It’s quite a lovely award, don’t you think?

A Prolific Blogger is one who is intellectually productive… keeping up an active blog that is filled with enjoyable content.

There are a couple of rules for this award:

1. Every winner of the Prolific Blogger Award has to pass on this award to at least seven other deserving prolific bloggers. Spread some love!
2. Each Prolific Blogger must link to the blog from which he/she has received the award.
3. Every Prolific Blogger must link back to This Post, which explains the origins and motivation for the award.
4. Every Prolific Blogger must visit this post and add his/her name in the Mr. Linky, so that we all can get to know the other winners.

Miss Remmers’ Reviews is one of the blogs that I first visited during Bloggiesta as part of the comment mini-challenge, and I enjoy Reagan’s posts, especially the Thesis Statement Video, which has the Thesis Statement Rap in it.  LOL! Had to put it in there 🙂

Now for my magnificent seven nominees:

Care’s Online Book Club – While Care is currently UNPLUGGED, I enjoy reading her posts, particularly the Virginia Wolf ones (I argue I don’t like stream of conscious, and yet I loved Push.  Maybe I should give Ms. Wolf a shot, since it really was the movie The Hours that made me run from her.)  Looking forward to your return, Blogging Buddy 🙂

Wrighty Reads – Debbie has great reviews and I enjoy her “So I was just wondering…” posts.  AND she’s a fellow left-hander 😉  Lefties RULE!

Unfinished Rambler – Poor Unfinished.  He’s lost his favorite blog home, Humor-Blogs.com, and he’s been going through the various stages of grief about it.  I think he might be at acceptance now, but I’m not quite sure… He’s definitely still snarky about it, but he’s usually snarky anyway, which is one of the things I enjoy about his blogs.  Did you know Elvis is the janitor at his library?  He’s probably too cool for this award, but here it is all the same 🙂

Lady Gwyn’s Kingdom – This is a fairly new-to-me blog, but quite enjoyable.  I found it through my Google Alerts.  She had “Reading Challenge” and Welsh on the same page, so Google thought it was the same as “Welsh Reading Challenge”… erm, not quite, but I’m glad for GA’s loose extrapolation, because I would have missed this one.  It’s a lovely blog, playing chamber music while you read reviews of books about Tudors and other royal members behaving badly (and some not so bad, too;-) ), books by Sharon Kay Penman, and you can read about what happened on this day in history, as well.

Reading In Color – Ari is probably another one who is too cool for this award (really, she is, go check her blog out 🙂 ), but it’s what I’ve got to show my appreciation for what she’s doing, so here ya go.  She’s working with Doret and Laura on a project to find the most diverse YA/MG publishing company, so if you have any ideas, pass it along!

Debbie’s World of Books – This is another great blog I first visited during the Bloggiesta mini-challenge, and I’ve enjoyed ever since.  Great reviews, fun memes, and I love the blog theme (purple’s my favorite color 😉 )

In Spring is the Dawn – Also a Bloggiesta find, Tanabata focuses a lot on All Things Japanese, whether that be in book or movie form, or the traditional music of Japan.  It’s fascinating to learn about translations, and her blog’s layout is fun and beautiful.

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Also, don’t forget to check out my giveaway!  I’m giving away a copy of Push by Sapphire, and the more people sign up, the more prizes!  If 50 or more people enter to win, I’ll add $10 to spend on Amazon.com for the grand prize!

Post-It Note Tuesday! GLEEk for It!

I saw this meme on someone’s blog last week (forget whose, but I’ll remember right after I click “Publish”), then was reminded of the meme by Rebecca’s post today, Lost in Books:  Post-It Note Tuesday #2.  As soon as I saw it last week, I ran over to SupahMommy and got the direction on how to play.  I remember, as a kid, when Post-Its became all the rage, and we used to write goofy stuff all over them, tag each others books, bags, lockers… bodies, even!  Those and the label gun were enough to see me through my teenage angst.

So naturally I HAVE to play 😀  You can visit Superstickies and make your own Post-It notes, which can give you hours of fun all on it’s own 🙂

First up, my Ode to GLEE Post-It:

After watching the first four episodes of GLEE, I ran out to Wal-Mart and bought season one.  Honestly, I might like this show more than Stargate, LOST, and Star Trek combined!

Other Post-Its I had fun making 🙂

I actually say this to my children, by the way. A for-real quote from The Kool-Aid Mom.

Actually, my dad's favorite way of telling me my pranks and jokes had gone to far was, "You're about as funny as a rubber crutch"

This was a joke I heard when I was about Maggie's age. There were a whole bunch of Mommy! Mommy! jokes, but this is the only one I remember.

Okay, I actually stole this from my nephew's t-shirt collection 🙂

Friday Fill-Ins ~ The LOST Bionic Invisible Blogger!

1. Wouldn’t it be easy _to sneak into the vault at the bank and help myself *sigh* if only I had the power of invisibility_. 

2. _Gentlemen, we can rebuild her. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic blogger. The Kool-Aid Mom will be that blogger.  She will be_ better than ever!

3. I love the taste of _chicken (don’t EVER EVVVVER Google “I love the taste of” …. EVVVVVER_. you went and did it, didn’t you.  I WARNED you.

4. _Now that it’s the domain of two teenagers, it looks like a tornado touched down after an industrial accident happened_ in the living room.

5. The first thing we’re going to do is _get that woman hitting little punk into a sweatlodge and make him sweat out that evil_.

6. _The cold weather outside makes my nose go_ drip, drip, drip; _could someone tell me where the facet handle is?_

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to _read The Hobbit, work on laundry and start a LOST-a-thon with Mags_, tomorrow my plans include _lunch with the kids and a run to the library, fininshing and reviewing The Hobbit, clean house, and more LOST with Mags_ and Sunday, I want to _hide from Maggie’s dad (he told her he’d be here Sunday, that’s why all the house cleaning), act like I really care what he says, then LOST the rest of the day after he leaves_! (Yes, we are gearing up for the LOST season premiere next week!)

So, whatcha doin’ this weekend?

more Friday Fill-Ins here!

BTT ~ Dune Thief’s Daughters

Jackie says, “I love books with complicated plots and unexpected endings. What is your favourite book with a fantastic twist at the end?”

So, today’s question is in two parts.

1. Do YOU like books with complicated plots and unexpected endings?

2. What book with a surprise ending is your favorite? Or your least favorite?

My answer to the first part, “do I like complicated plots and unexpected endings?” is a resounding YES!  I think it’s one of the things I liked best about Dune.  All the intrigues and plots and subplots made it like taking a long trip down a winding road and checking out all the historical markers, garage sales, and tourist traps along the way.  I hate reading a book where I know what’s going to happen, it really takes a lot of the fun out of it.  Maybe that’s one of the things I didn’t like about The Blue Notebook, none of it was a surprise… except just how far human depravity can go.

As for what book with a surprise ending is my favorite, I’d say The Book Thief is my favorite book.  I don’t know whether it was a “surprise” because we know Liesel is going to die by page 3, and yet… somehow… her death is still a shock, like when a person with cancer dies in a car crash.  You knew their end was coming, but when it happens it’s a shock.  It wasn’t the fact she died, but the how and what all happened in the book before that.  I actually cried for several minutes, and couldn’t start a new book for a few days because of how much emotions it had wrought in me.  That’s why The Book Thief is my all-time favorite book.  I’ve never had a book reach me so deeply.

As for my least favorite “surprise ending” book, that’d be BoneMan’s Daughters.  By the time the end came, I was hating the book so bad, there was nothing Dekker could do to bring me back.  I’d lost my willing suspension of disbelief, so the ending was ridiculous to me.

So how about you?  Do you like complicated and twisty books?  What’s your favorite surprise ending?

Check out other Twisty Booking Through Thursday answers!

A-Z Wednesday ~ Kissin’ Frogs

Welcome to A-Z Wednesday!!

A-Z Wednesday is hosted by Vicki at Reading At The Beach

To join, here’s all you have to do:

Go to your stack of books and find one whose title starts with the letter of the week.

Post:

1~ a photo of the book

2~ title and synopsis

3~ link(amazon, barnes and noble etc.)

4~ Return to A-Z Wednesday and leave your link in the comments.

 

THIS WEEKS LETTER IS: “Y “

I’ve been reading and enjoying this weekly meme at Joy’s Blog for a while, but never participated.  I almost did last week, as the letter was a challenging “X” (must be going in alphabetical order by weeks, just thought of that), but ultimately missed it (xxxHOLiC would probably have been my answer, if I had it by then)  But I am jumping in this week 🙂

So, for the letter “Y” I have quite a cute little book that I had picked up at a library sale a few months (or years, who knows by now!) ago called You Have to Kiss a Lot of Frogs by Laurie Graff.  I picked up the book, initially, because I thought the title was a lot of fun, but then I bought it for the cover:

From LibraryThing’s book description:

Tales from the dating pond.

“It only takes one.”

“There are a lot of other fish in the sea.”

“Every pot has a cover.”

“When it’s your time, it will just happen.”

Ugh!

Karrie Kline had heard it all. But her search for the perfect man had never been all that pressing until her laugh lines became more noticeable, she attended one too many bridal showers and woke up next to far too many never-gonna-commit men. Suddenly, she realized that finding someone to love (and who actually loved her back) was important. Karrie wanted more. But knowing what she wanted, and actually getting what she wanted . . . well, that was a lot to think about.

Through her wry, witty and sometimes wrenching recollections, join Karrie as she looks back at over fifteen years of dating vignettes involving disastrous fix-ups, strange chance encounters and missed opportunities. From the shortest date in Manhattan history, to Mr. FamousHollywoodTelevisonActor who was more bark than bite, these are tales for every woman — whether she’s found her Prince Charming, or her lips are incredibly chapped from kissing her own share of frogs.

Yeah, it’s a light read, but I may have to grab it to frivol (stealing bermudaonion’s wondrous word) away the memory of The Blue Notebook, which I will finish today.  Whether I get to the words “The End” or not, I’m done with it today.

The Sunday Salon Is Closed? Oh, Noooz!

Okay, before you get too excited, it’s NOT the whole thing that’s closed or closing, The Sunday Salon is just closed for new membership.

Let me explain.

When I started The Welsh Reading Challenge, it was my first book challenge, and I was doing it out of a love for my own heritage as well as giving myself a prod to read those books I’ve really been wanting to, but just not done it.  I hadn’t really expected very many people to join in, though I wasn’t closed to it.  So when a few people joined in, I got excited.  I looked around at everyone else’s challenges, especially those who were finishing up with their firsts and starting their second ones, so I could glean from their experiences.  One thing that was mentioned by a couple was that having a separate blog just for the challenge was a preferable way to keep the challenge better organized and thereby easier to navigate for participants.  So during Bloggiesta I decided to take the big step and give the challenge it’s own space to live and flourish.

I’ve been working on the challenge’s blog and adding pages and content, as well as beginning to get some offers for prizes (Thanks Ceri at Americymru!).  It’s been a bit of a reading distraction as I’ve been hunting up titles for the suggested reading page and worked a bit on a Welsh culture page called “Hiraeth” (which actually took a lot of reading and exploring).  Even when I have been trying to read, my mind drifts to the challenge and ideas for the blog to make it more fun (Pam at Bookalicio.us made the delicious suggestion of having a Welsh movie mini-challenge and we could sit around and drool over Ioan Gruffudd among others -what others? After she invoked the name of Mr. Fantastic, I was like Homer for donuts!  Mmmm… Ioan.. nom-nom-nom!), as well as informative.  It’s a labor of a lot of love, and even if no one else enjoys it, I do.

So when I thought about how to do a weekly wrap post to let everyone know what books were read with links to reviews and other Welsh-related stuff, I thought immediately about The Sunday Salon.  It’s a great weekly meme that many bloggers participate in, and the posts are linked through the site, yahoo tubes, as well as tweeted.  I jumped out of bed and ran the five steps to the computer to sign The Welsh Reading Challenge up!

Imagine my shock when I read this message:

as of January 3, 2010, we won’t be accepting new members in the Salon.

You see, apparently this fabulous meme has grown to over 500 blogs and is more than YahooPipes can handle.  LOL!  How fantastic is that?  To think that, right now all over the world, more than 500 people are at this moment writing a post like this one, or thinking about what they’re going to write, or reading other SundaySaloner’s posts after publishing their own.  I don’t know if The Sunday Salon is the largest meme on the Internet, but it’s amazing no matter what.

So what do you think?  Do you participate in The Sunday Salon?  How does it make you feel to know it’s closed?

FFI ~ Kittens and Dead Bodies? Back Through the Stargate, Everybody!

1. The lesson I learned yesterday was reading a book with your ten-year-old while the new(ish) kitten is diving under the covers and attacking your feet is NOT easy, and very hard to talk over the giggling.

2. Weddings and funerals are where friends and family meet.

3. All these years I’ve looked forward to the kids growing up, and now that they’ve become interested in boys, I’m wishing they could be little again.

4. Like I told the cops, those bodies were like that when I arrived.

5. The truth is I was enjoying the Kyo the kittens play-time as much as Maggie was.

6. The feeling I could’ve died had it not been for the zip line is what I remember most from that day. (I went repelling, and I let go of the hand-loops, but luckily I was also hooked up via a clip, as well)

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to finishing up Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Maggie and Kyo, tomorrow my plans include our trip to the library and lunch, and watching The Seeker with Mags and maybe starting James and the Giant Peach with her and Sunday, I want to have finished Islands Apart, which I’ve been really enjoying, and watching a few episodes of Stargate!

Check out more Friday Fill-Ins here!

BTW, I’m a little frightened of the fact that when I went and added “dead bodies” to the tags, I had already used that before 😮

Viral Video Wednesday ~ Mash-ups

Well, after a couple weeks hiatus while setting up the new computer and importing bookmarks (all my VVW ones, especially), Viral Video Wednesday is back on.  And this week’s topic, per Maggie’s request, is:  Mash-ups.  A mash-up is when you take scenes from one move and add scenes or the audio from another movie to and make it one video as if they’d been from the same show.

So, here are my vids:

First up, in honor of his opening today, I thought a Harry Potter mash-up would be perfect.  It might not entirely qualify as a mash-up… it’s more of a parody, actually… but it takes characters from 3 movies and puts them together.

And here’s another Harry Potter mash-up, this time with Pride and Prejudice.  Does this count toward my Everything Austen Challenge?

What if Harry knew that he was just a fictional character?  That he was merely a figment of J. K. Rowling’s imagination and that all his suffering was merely a device to propel a story along?  Harry Potter, Stranger that Fiction…

Now, I hadn’t realized until I watched the following mash-up that Alan Rickman and Helena Bonham Carter were in both Sweeny Todd and Harry Potter, which of course makes this next vid worth sitting through someone camming their TV.

And finally, this is similar to one of the first mash-up type video I saw (the one I wanted had been removed, poo!), and has yummy Ioan Gruffudd in it.  It tells the story of the Founding Four of Hogwarts 🙂

There are thousands of mash-ups out there, if you search a movie title (usually a more popular one) and the word “mashup,” you’ll find plenty to choose from.

Now it’s your turn… What are some of your favorite mash-ups?

Next week’s VVW:  Commercials

Friday Fill-Ins ~ If We Get Dee-vorced, Is We Still Cousins?

Graphic courtesy of Tonya!

And…here we go!

1. She had a great uncle who was married to his half-cousin who was the daughter of her uncle who was the brother of her mother until they were divorced, and now the entrance to the family reunions are guarded by a metal detector.

2. My left hip is by my side, always.

3. I know this: Shellacked moose turds are NOT my idea earring and necklace pendants (They really sell them in Alaska, my sister showed me some).

4. I got up to go to the bathroom, stopped to check if the Friday Fill-Ins were up yet, and I have to pee still.

5. These words apply to me: inca, dinka, doo and nee… but I turn down their application because they make absolutely no sense.

6. The sun was shining on the sea, shining with all his might: He did his very best to make the billows smooth and bright– and this was odd, because it was the middle of the night.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to going to the library and watching Inkheart, Sammi getting leaving to spend July with her dad, me going to Maggie’s VBS program, finishing Water for Elephants and writing the review, tomorrow my plans include taking Mags and Gwen out to lunch and finishing reading Something Beyond Greatness and Sunday, I want to go to church (we missed last week) and vegging out in front of the TV… or doing what our Pastor always says, “Fellowshipin’ with Pastor Pillow and Sister Sheets… can I get an ‘Amen!’ 😀 “!

BTT ~ The Best Place After the Womb!

Now that summer is here (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), what is the most “Summery” book you can think of? The one that captures the essence of summer for you?

(I’m not asking for you to list your ideal “beach reading,” you understand, but the book that you can read at any time of year but that evokes “summer.”)

Oddly, when I think of “summer reading” I think of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.  When I first really started reading books in earnest, I was in high school and part of an Honors Reading program.  The summer before my junior year, I was a camp counselor and took my copy of The Scarlet Letter with me.  I found this little hidden clearing that was just off a secondary trail, and I would slip into it and park my butt under a tree and read through my free time. 

To this day, this memory is my “happy place” that I go to in my mind whenever I’m stressed out.  It was such a relaxing place.  Quiet but for a gentle breeze blowing through the trees and the birds singing cheerfully.  Safe… no one ever found me in there, even when they were walking by on the trail and calling for me, they never saw the opening to the clearing.  The cheerful sunshine radiating down and warming me, while the shade of the tree kept me from being too hot or getting too much sun.  The book in my hand transporting me to another time and place.

What’s your best summer memory of reading?