I love hearing from authors and publicists who’d like me to read and review their books. If you have a title you think I’d be interested in, please feel free to contact me at ibetnoonehasthisdamnid@yahoo.com .
For more information about what books I like and how I choose which books to review, check out Mt. TBR's review policy.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Okay, so I’ve had just about enough of this wispy white and cold crap. I’m not fond of having my breath stolen from my lungs because it’s so cold it’s painful to breathe in at all. Maybe if I just hibernate for the rest of the winter? Gah! I’d still have to go out to get groceries. Oh, well… I guess it’s either run away to Florida or just suck it up. Since I don’t have the money for a road trip, I guess that means I’m in for the sucking part.
So, January was a fairly productive reading month. I finished off eight books, and am about half way through two others. Since just having year-long goals only made me quick to start and race to the finish, while dropping off the face of the reading world the other five or so months, I decided to post monthly plans to keep me accountable 🙂
I was surprised I hit 8 last month, but I need to get that every month if I’m going to accomplish all the challenges I’ve signed up for. There were two books I had planned to read in January that I didn’t get to, so they go on the top of the list. Also I have a blog tour book, so that goes to the top, too. And I’m doing the Lord of the Rings Readalong, so The Fellowship of the Rings is a topper, too. LOL, heck, they’re all top books!
Currently Reading:
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl ~ I’m reading it with Magggie, and we’re on page 30.
Graceling by Kristin Cashore ~ Really, I’d only picked this one up because Fire is on my ARC-alanche pile, but I’m completely wowwed by this YA fantasy book! I only wish I’d read it sooner!
Planed Reading:
The Mom’s Guide to Growing Your Family Green by Terra Wellington ~ This is one of the two I’d meant to get to in January. It was won in the March 2009 ER batch, so I’m needing to get it done this month.
Holy Roller by Julie Lyons ~ The second overdue ER book, I think it’s also a March 2009.
Tainted by Brooke Morgan ~ I’m down for February 24th for the TLC Book Blog tour. I’m looking forward to reading this one, it sounds intriguing.
The Triumph of Deborah by Eva Etzioni-Halevy ~ I have a second book for a giveaway for this one 🙂
Strange but True, America by John Hafnor ~ I also have a second book to giveaway on this fun book 😉
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkein ~ I’ll probably space this out all month so I can both enjoy it to the most, as well as get it done while reading everything else.
I also intend to keep up on my Google Reader. I’ve done really well at keeping it under 100, which I was feeling panicky about that much until Jen and Natasha were laughing at me and wanting to get theirs below 1000. Okay, I’ll stop stressing because there’s 20 still sitting in my reader… lol. And I’m trying to post something everyday. I only missed 3 days in January, and if I can get a few rainy day posts in the can, I should be able to have one everyday. I’ve been thinking about doing some mini-reviews of books I read before blogging.
So what kinds of post would you like me to do? Does anyone miss Viral Video Wednesday? What are you planning to read in February?
This weekend, my local library held their first book sale since before Thanksgiving, which meant I had gone TWO WHOLE MONTHS without being able to peruse, pet, and purchase previously loved (some more lightly than others) books. I LOVE the library sales! If I could, I’d just pack them all up and take them home. As it is, I have to limit myself for two reasons: 1) We always walk to the library, and it’s about 6 or so blocks, so I have to carry home everything I buy. 2) I would go broke if I didn’t watch myself. So I went in with a self-imposed $10 cap on my total, and I left having forked over $9.50 for two sturdy bagfuls of lovely books.
One of the things I love about the book sales is that I can get books that I might not otherwise ever know about, and they often turn out to be quite a treasure. This weekend’s loot has introduced me to Angela Thirkell, who has quite a pedigree and a life well-worth reading her biography (and I hate biography books!). As I was looking through the titles on the tables, my attention was caught by Wild Strawberries.
A witty romp through English Country-house life at its most delightfully absurd. At Rushwater House in West Barsetshire, Lady Emily Leslie and her family are entertaining an assortment of house guests, hangers-on, and French monarchists. Amid a perfect welter of rapturous embraces and moonlight madness, a marriage is finally arranged. A glittering summer party provides a hilarious climax to the various intrigues. -from product description at Amazon.com
A couple of books I picked up just to put on BookMooch and PaperBackSwap. Obsession and Intimidation by Wanda Dyson are the second and third, respectively, in Dyson’s Shefford-Johnson Case series. The library didn’t have the first book in the series, Abduction, but the books looked nice and new and I thought someone some where would appreciate them.
A couple books I picked up I did so after reviewing Islands Apart and making the statement that there were no women authored Waldens out there. Care of Care’s Online Book Club commented that Eat, Pray, Love (one of her favorite books in 2007) was one such book, so when I saw it sitting in one of the boxes, I snatched it up. Then, as if by fate, the title Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman caught my eye.
I am a modern-day nomad. I have no permanent address, no possessions except the ones I carry, and I rarely know where I’ll be six months from now. I move through the world without a plan, guided by instinct, connecting through trust, and constantly watching for serendipitous opportunities. -from the author’s site.
After separating from her husband, 48-year-old Gelman looked around at her well-to-do life and her soul cried out for change. She took off to explore the world and hasn’t had a permanent address since 1986. As you would expect, she initially got flak from her friends and family for running away. Of course, her kids were in their early twenties when she began her new life as a nomad, which still leaves me saying that if it were a mother instead of a father who took off to explore the world like McAlpine did, she would get hate mail from readers, society would label her a bad mother, and she’d likely lose her children. And YES! I am still jealous that they can jaunt all over and see the world 😉
I had to do the book-victory dance when I found a book that I have wanted for a LONG time, and was the basis for one of my all-time favorite movies: The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. I was initially “forced” to watch the movie when Turner Classic Movies first showed up on our cable box and my dad never changed the channel again. Ingrid Bergman is one the greatest and most beautiful actresses of all time, so it didn’t take too much coaxing. When I found out it was based on a book, I made my way to the library, only to discover they didn’t have a copy. Years have passed, and I’ve never forgotten I wanted to read the book, but never found it in the bookstores or library. So seeing it in the book sale was quite a surprise. Where have they been hiding it all this time?
A couple of the other books I picked up in response to the Persons of Color discussions and The POC Reading Challenge that will be, I’m sure, the last challenge I sign up for this year, as I’m getting to where I can’t remember which books are for which challenges and what challenges I’m doing. The books for this challenge are to be either by authors of color or are about persons of color. The levels are:
I’ve committed at the 3rd level, though I’ll probably read more than 9. I’ve never really sat and specifically thought consciously about the race of the author or characters, though I’ve generally leaned toward POC books anyway. So, now that it’s something that I’m more aware of, I snatched up the following books:
Mah revisits the territory she covered in her adult bestseller, Falling Leaves, for this painful and poignant memoir aimed at younger readers. Blamed for the loss of her mother, who died shortly after giving birth to her, Mah is an outcast in her own family. When her father remarries and moves the family to Shanghai to evade the Japanese during WWII, Mah and her siblings are relegated to second-class status by their stepmother. They are given attic rooms in their big Shanghai home, they have nothing to wear but school uniforms, and they subsist on a bare-bones diet while their stepmother’s children dine sumptuously. Mah finds escape from this emotionally barren landscape at school, but the academic awards she wins only enrage her jealous siblings and stepmother, and she is eventually torn from her aunt, her one champion, and shipped off to boarding school. That Mah eventually soars above her circumstances is proof of her strength of character. The author recreates moments of cruelty and victory so convincingly that readers will feel almost as if they’re in the room with her. She never veers from a child’s sensibility; the child in these pages rarely judges the actions of those around her, she’s simply bent on surviving. Mah easily weaves details of her family’s life alongside the traditions of China (e.g., her grandmother’s bound feet) and the changes throughout the war years and subsequent Communist takeover. This memoir is hard to put down. -from Amazon.com
The “Babur Nama”, a journal kept by Zahir Uddin Muhammad Babur (1483-1530), the founder of the Mughal Empire, is the earliest example of autobiographical writing in world literature, and one of the finest. Against the turbulent backdrop of medieval history, it paints a precise and vivid picture of life in Central Asia and Afghanistan – where Babur ruled in Samarkand and Kabul – and in the Indian subcontinent, where his dazzling military career culminated in the founding of a dynasty that lasted three centuries.
Babur was far more than a skilled, often ruthless, warrior and master strategist… [This is] a unique historical document that is at once objective and intensely personal – for, in Babur’s words, ‘the truth should be reached in every matter’. -From the back of the book
This sounds like it might go good with The Art of Warfare.
The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou – I love Maya Angelou! She’s a fabulous woman and writer, and I always have to chuckle when I think about Nikki Giovanni. When I was in college at IUK, Nikki was a guest professor, though I never had the privilege of being a student in her classes. I had never heard of her as an author, so when she donated her time as a tutor in the math and language lab, I just chatted with her like you would with any normal person. One day, we were all talking about her upcoming trip to a writing conference for African-American women (I still hadn’t realized Nikki was, herself, an author) and she asked me if there was anyone’s autograph I’d like. “Maya Angelou” was quickly off my tongue, as I’d recently read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and was, to be honest, the only black author I’d known of at the time other than Alex Haley (I read Malcolm X a couple years before, and who hasn’t heard of Roots?). I spent the whole school year never realizing the secret treasure that was in my friend, and didn’t know until the school held a book signing at the end of the year.
Nikki is one of the people God had put in my life at a perfect time period in my life who helped combat the racism I had grown up with. The names of some of the others I’ve forgotten now, not realizing at the time how important they were to me. Phyllis and Manny, good friends when I desperately needed some. Nikita, who patiently answered every stupid question I had ever wanted to ask and my mother forbade me ask (“Why are your palms white? Are there other spots that are like that? Can you sunburn?” among others). Kisha, who opened my eyes to the fact Jesus was NOT white with blonde hair and blue eyes, and who told me flat out, “God didn’t put me on this earth to answer your questions about being black.” Scotti, who was a friend and fellow mom, who was there for me when I was stressed out beyond belief. And the Professor Emeritus, whose name I’ve long-since forgot, who challenged my thinking that I’d inherited and made me see the world in a different way. I am eternally grateful to all them 🙂
One last look around before leaving yielded the last 50 cents spent. A beautiful copy of Alice in Wonderland (I now have 3 different copies of this book) by Lewis Carroll and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. It’s an updated version of this classic, and I thought Maggie would love it.
A quick look through shows a more modern Alice, colorful illustrations, and larger print than my other two copies. I have loved this classic since I myself was a little girl, and remember my mom reading it to me. So I thought Mags would be able to enjoy this book as much as I had, and maybe we could enjoy it together 🙂 AND it’s worth 12 AR points 😉 which made her smile.
The only book I haven’t mentioned is The Stolen White Elephant and Other Detective Stories which is a collection of Mark Twain’s detective stories, including Tom Sawyer, Detective. I adore Twain, and have since I first discovered Tom and Huck. I actually had a book crush on Huck for about 3 or 4 years as a kid 🙂
So are you a book glutton, too? Do you go to your library’s book sales? Do you like used books? or do you preffer all new ones?
Good morning, bloggie world 🙂 The sun is shining bright and warm… through my window it’s warm, outside the temps are brutal. I’ve been very productive with Bloggiesta housekeeping, mini-challenges and stuff, this weekend and I feel good. I even finished a book, went to the grocery store, library and breakfast yesterday. It’s just been a busy weekend!
Of course, it’s not all roses, either. I have teenage people living here. One who’s almost 17 and has recently returned to the mentality of a TWO year old, telling me “NO” and actually trying to stand on that. Then there’s the 15-year-old who seems to have forgotten how to speak English, but is fluent in WHINE-ESE. I bought a box of Cream of Wheat for the first time in about 12 or 13 years and she’s dying to try it. But, instead of reading the box’s directions or waiting for help, she starts making it like instant oats. She came in with the dessert bowl full of dry mix asking, “Is this how you do it?” NO, it’s not how you do it… that’s enough to make a pot of the stuff! *heavy and frustrated sigh* So she stormed off to her room, demanding I let her know when I’ve finished cooking her breakfast. Grrr…..
Teenagers… dontcha just wanna BITCH SLAP them sometimes?
Lenore at Presenting Lenore is starting an International Book Blogger Mentor Program to help those who live outside the US and Canada be able to read and review the newer books that they’d otherwise not be able to receive as most publishers and blogging contests aren’t open to them.
Any book blogger who blogs in English about books and lives outside the US and Canada can apply. Each month I will pick one blogger to send 2-3 of my most recent review copies to.
I myself have always held my contests open to anyone, anywhere, so long as they have an address to send to, because I know it’s gotta suck to see a book you’d love to have, only to find out you’re geographically ineligible. So Lenore’s idea is pretty cool 🙂
Random rant…. Why is it that SPAMMERS suddenly think I’m a randy, philandering, inadequately equipped middle-aged man? Judging by my INBOX… the one’s that my spam filter thinks I WANT to read, I’m in the market for Extenze… GAWD, I HATE those commercials! I want to rip that chick’s face off and monkey-stomp her… grrr……… AND that I’m in need of Viagra or the cheaper substitute. The latest additions to my inbox are:
“I missed you at the bar” – really? That’s probably because I wasn’t there.
“Why Wait have an affair with a cheating wife today” – K, erm… I like to eat fish at the dinner table, cooked and with tartar sauce, NOT in the bedroom… or any other room they might want to hang it. And eww… JUST… EWwwwWWWwwww… Not that there’s anything wrong with that, right Jerry?
“Engagement Ring. Make your proposal memorable.” Apparently, not only am I a randy cheater with a tiny willy, but I’m lookin’ to get hitched, too!
I’ve been deleting all these messages, then emptying the trash, but maybe I should keep ’em for a while, then share them all in a blog post. WordPress’ Akismet filter seems to work better than Yahoo’s, maybe they should work together and then I won’t get such craptastic emails. But, then again, what would I have to laugh at?
And now for a mostly video Sunday Salon… Well, we did read Fruits Basket, volumes 1 and 2 this week… So now for some fun stuff.
We went for a walk out in the gorgeous day yesterday… it was a little on the warmish side, but not too bad. We decided to go to Hardee’s for supper and took Missy with us…
Right now, Missy is sitting by me in her bed with her ears cocked up and a very excited look on her face (and a tail that’s going 30 miles a minute 😉
On a normal walk to Hardee’s, we walk the main streets, but with Missy in tow, we have to walk down what we call Ex-Lax Alley. There are about 6 or 7 dogs in the yards on that alley, and Missy gets so excited that she never makes it out without… erm, “Paying the TOLL.”
Missy’s very interested down there in her bed… I should cam her when one of these vids are on. The dog in the next vid, I think, is a boxer or a pit. He’s gotten out a couple times and is fairly good natured. I still pick up Missy and carry her when he gets out, though. Nice doggy though he may be, she’d still just make a two-bite brownie for him!
and the next video is a group of dogs that Missy USED to be friends with…. apparently they’ve had words and are now Frenemies or something…
It was surprising to me that they were no longer doggy-pals. She’s either getting crotchety in her old age (all of 4, I think) or the dogs just don’t like her no more, but she’s running out of pals! Just the Jack Russell next door, named Spike, and that’s it. Poor sad lonely friendless Missy 😦
LOL.. and NOW, as we were almost to Hardee’s, I was telling Maggie about how many views Missy’s videos have gotten compared to theirs… a fact that she firmly believes is Gwen watching them 500 times. I joke around with Maggie, who’s the youngest, that Missy is, IN FACT, my baby and that the dog is my favorite “child.” Maggie always play-fights with me and Missy when I say it, and this time Gwen had to chime in with her two-cents. Maggie gave it back to her with interest! (It’s all play and fun, btw, no one got hurt).
And then we made it to Hardee’s, got our food and went home. The End. LOL.. I did have a vid of Missy getting her food, but my messy dining room was visible in the background so I deleted it. She loved her food, though, and ate it with great relish.
And now… off to make supper. Maggie has requested Meatloaf. Yum!
Oh man… Today our church had services outside and then a picnic and fun and games after. Gwen, my 15-year-old, entered the watermelon eating contest and came in second. She at an entire melon and hasn’t felt up to much eating since.. lol. Cotton candy, snow cones, hillbilly golf (no idea what that is), three-legged races, sack races and so much more. All told, we were out on the blacktop in the unhindered sunshine for about 3 hours, and went home hot, FULL, and ready for fellowshippin’ with Pastor Pillow and Sister Sheets! Not long ago, after scratching my forehead, I f0und my skin to be rather warm and sensitive. My arms are a warm pinky color, but my face is a shiny red sunburn. yay. Guess I’ll be tearing into the aloe plant in a bit 😉
I finally got the bookmarks from my old computer and put them on here. The kids are being good little troupers and not complaining about the lack of internet. Someone suggested I get a router to plug into the modem, and then plug my and their computers into it. I hope it’s not terrible expensive, I’m already a desk and 25-foot cable into it.
Also, since my desk has been covered with stacks of books, which all went onto my bed when I took out the old computer and put in the new one, making sleep nigh impossible that night (especially since Mags had crawled in my bed while I was working), I finally broke down and got a new bookcase… a HALF bookcase, I don’t intend on filling it… nope, no way… nuh uh! But, within 24 hours, it had been claimed by someone else.
Wait, THAT'S not on my TBR pile!
Well, I’m hoping for a better week of reading and looking forward to maybe settling back down into a routine, again. I’m also wondering if maybe I should go through Mt. TBR and being honest with myself, “Am I really ever going to read this?” Especially if it’s something I know a lot of people have wishlisted. I’ve already found a home for The Audacity of Hope, which I got last year along with McCain’s book with the plan of doing a post of opposing candidates. Honestly, I’m not going to read it now, and BM had 199 people wanting it, so it’s going on to a new TBR pile. Maybe they’ll read it, lol.
I’ve come to a point in having too many books *gasp, clutch pearls! That’s blasphemy!* where I’ve bought or mooched books I already had, and, if I never got another book, it’d take me at least 3 or 4 years to get through them all. I should unsubscribe to Shelf-Awareness… lol… but I’d just go to the website. Too many books and NOT ENOUGH TIME!
K, so now I’ve come to the point in the post to announce the winner of the Something Beyond Greatness giveaway 🙂 And that winner is: sdechantal! Congratulations, if you’ll send me your address, I’ll get that out in the mail to you next week 🙂
and now, a video of MY OWN 😀 YaY! I love my computer, I can now share my pics and vids from my new camera! This is my dog, Missy. She’s a Rat Terrier, and her favorite thing in the world is Hardee’s. Can you guess what her LEAST favorite thing is?
and while watching the vid here, Missy started getting excited and prancing around. She thought I was saying these things, NOW, to her… LOL….
K, so I started doing a Jane-a-thon last year, fully intent on reading all Jane Austen’s books, straight through, in order of publication. I made it through Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, and Mansfield Park with no trouble…. then came Emma, and I hit a wall. She was so dense and droning and hard to read… even harder to like any of the characters except Mr. Knightly and Miss Taylor… and I lost steam. I did finally finish Emma a couple weeks ago, but I’m thinking I need a shot of something to get back on track with it all.
So….
I’ve joined 65 other people in joining Stephanie’s Written Word‘s Everything Austen Challenge! It’s my first book challenge, other than LibraryThing’s 50 and 75 book challenges, and I’m excited to be doing it 🙂
The challenge runs from July 1st, 2009 to January 1st, 2010, and in that six months, I need to do at least six Austen related things, either reading books by her, books about her, books about the characters she wrote or watching movies of the same ilk. Six Austen-related things will be easy for me… the hard part will be not doing them all in July out of excitement. 😀
And since I’m being such a joiner, I think I’ll go ahead and join the War Through the Generations World War II Reading Challenge. Since it’s running from January 1st, 2009 to December 31st, 2009, I can count books I’ve read since the challenge began. Pretty easy, really… only 5 books and I’ve read two already.
As they say, “In for a penny, in for a pound,” so I’m going to add one more challenge to my book-challenge-lovefestI’ve got going. So Many Books, So Little Time is hosting an ARC Reading Challenge. I know I need to get it in gear with my ARC-alanche pile threatening to cave in… and poor Missy’s bed is just below the stacks, she’ll be crushed!
So, to save my dog and get motivated to get on the stick with these, I’m joining the 2009 ARC Reading Challenge. For this challenge I am suppose to list all my ARCs and review books (done that on the ARC-alanche pageof Mt. TBR’s inventory), and read 12 of them. Coolness 🙂
Tomorrow, June 29th, is my birthday, so yay me! LOL…
In the Shadow of Mt. TBR is a little over a year old, June 16, 2008 was my first post.
Monday is my stop for the Something Beyond Greatness blog tour, and I’ve got an extra copy to give away, so make sure to sign up for a chance to win. I’ll have a daily post for you to comment on for an extra entry, too.
I’ve been bookmarking and meaning to do several one-time memes, but I’ve been lazy and kept putting them off. Inspired by the Bloggiesta that I didn’t sign up for, but seem to be doing anyway… unofficially… I figured this Sunday Salon post would be a good time to do it 🙂
First off, I grabbed this one from Page247‘s Sunday Salon over a month ago:
Diversity in Reading Meme
1. Name the last book by a female author that you’ve read.
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards, but I’m currently reading Water for Elephantsby Sara Gruen (and loving it 😉 )
2. Name the last book by an African or African-American author that you’ve read.
I can’t remember, actually… The last one I remember was Sacred Cows and Other Edibles by Nikki Giovanni, but I’m sure I’ve read something since then *hangs head in shame* Must remedy this….
3. Name one from a Latino/a author.
One that I read? or just a title out of the blue? This is harder than I thought… it looked so fun on Page247’s site. Love in the Time of Choleraby Gabriel García Márquez. It’s on Mt. TBR… somewhere….
4. How about one from an Asian country or Asian-American?
Finally! an easy one! The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, and an excellent book, I might add 😉
5. What about a GLBT writer?
I don’t know the author’s sex life unless they say it in bold print at the beginning. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as the writing’s good and the story pulls me in… the rest is their business. Jordan, the main character in the modern part of The 19th Wife is gay, does that count?
6. Why not name an Israeli/Arab/Turk/Persian writer, if you’re feeling lucky?
Yeah, I got this easy…. lol. A book I’d love to get to on Mt TBR: The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be Godby Israeli author Etgar Keret. One of the short stories in this book was made into the movie Wristcutters: A Love Story
7. Any other “marginalized” authors you’ve read lately?
I guess I should be more politically minded or something. Marginalized? IDK… Um, I’m reading The Last Lectureright now… it’s author, Randy Pausch died of cancer before it was published. Is he marginalized now? He can’t vote, and if he were to speak through Melinda Gordon or Allison DuBois, I don’t think anyone would listen.
Okay, this looked like too much fun to pass up. I’m ripping it off Sink or Swim, who did it as part of Ten on Tuesday meme. Okay, so I’m a couple days late on it…
Ten Things You’d Bring on a Deserted Island
The entire inventory of Mt. TBR… That’ll keep me busy for a good five years at least, and if I don’t like a book, it can be re-appropriated for other purposes: Firewood, note paper (remember The Book Thief?), TP, etc.
TWO lifetime supplies of Charmin 2-ply quilted with aloe and floral scent. Hey, I might as well splurge on something!
Charlie Hobbit of Driveshaft, wait… he died. Mr Eko, then … crap, he’s dead, too… John Locke… he died, but came back… No, wait… he’s possessed by an evil spirit or some such… Aw, heck… Gimme the Professor, then. Is he dead, yet?
The Magic Conch Shell 🙂
A volleyball and some red paint.. So I can make my own friend 🙂
A team of sexy masseurs 😀
Ioan Gruffudd*drool* And Hugh Jackman… and would it be greedy of me to want Gerard Butler, too… *long, cleansing breaths…. I think I need to lay down* Oh heck, since I’m being greedy… Gimme James Callis, too… he was who I pictured as Max in The Book Thief.
Ty Pennington, he can build me an awesome island home 🙂
A laptop with solar charger so I can blog about it all.
A helicopter so I can leave whenever I want.
The Magic Conch Shell Rap
Okay, after number 7 on what I’d bring to the island, I now have to go to confession… I’ve got some thoughts of a sinful nature 😀 no, no smilies… that’s bad!
Oh, how I wish I were a speed reader with photographic memory, that way I could zip through all those lovely books and then digest them later! Or, that I had clones, each with a feed into my own brain, so that I could read all the blogs and comment on them, read all the books and write their reviews, get all the house work done and cook and walk the dog and….. *sigh* and just the other million and one things I would do, meanwhile I would lay back and receive the feed and process it all.
But, alas… it is just little ol’ me.
But li’l ol’ me did manage to get a lot done this week. I figured out how to work Google Reader, but I’ve promptly forgot to CHECK IT EVERYDAY… now I’m scared to look at how many new posts will be waiting. I finished Emmaby Jane Austen… finally… and I’ve started the review, but I just don’t know exactly what I want to say or how I feel, so it sits in the drafts pile, waiting. The Cable modem had a malfunction and I was without internet for about 26 hours, so in the absence of my feed (addiction), I managed to read Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay (have yet to start the review), get about 2/3 the way through The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards, and get a good start on The 19th Wifeby David Ebershoff, but had to set aside Of Bees and Mistby Erick Setiawan until after the blog tour books since they take precedence as they have specific dates to post.
I got on the stick and started sorting clothes for keepers, winter clothes, Goodwill and trash, and now my kitchen table is covered with laundry, the job half done, so now we can’t eat at the table. We just kinda disperse to which ever cave, er, I mean “room”, we prefer to huddle in front of TV or monitor or book while consuming our food. It feels so separate and distant, I can’t see how people do that on a regular basis.
Maggie’s dad’s suffering the economic crunch, and this multiple-times Employee-of-the-Month-where-ever-he-goes will be outa a job as of Wednesday, the company he has worked for for six years is closing their doors. So my coming weeks will involve helping him with unemployment paperwork, filling out job apps, looking up openings online and helping him talk to potential employers. I do all of that because he’s Maggie’s daddy and if he gets a job here, then he’ll stay in the area and she’ll get to grow up as much with him as possible. When he first found out about the closing, he talked about moving back to California with his parents. Mags wanted me to let him live at our house, but I had to set her straight.
Me: “Maggot, that’s NOT going to happen.”
Daddy’s Princess: “Why not? He can sleep on my top bunk.”
Me: “Honey, if daddy were to move back in with us, it wouldn’t be long before you’d be an orphan because I’d be in jail for killing him”
Needless to say, he and I are great friends but we did not get along under the same roof AT ALL. I enjoy our relationship now that I can tell Mr. Anal-Retentive to “Go home if you don’t like my messy house.” The very things that I love and admire in him drove me insane when living together.
Yeah… As the sands through the hourglass, such is The Kool-Aid Mom’s life. 😀
Just sitting in front of the computer on a darkening Sunday afternoon, “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!” playing in the background. I’m snacking on the last of the Strawberry Pop Tarts, cold and just out of the bag, with peanut butter. I discovered the two go well together the other day when I was eating some peanut butter bread and pop tarts, alternating nibbles. Maggie thinks it’s disgusting, but I don’t see how much difference there is between that and Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jelly Sandwiches. What do you think?
So, I haven’t done much in the way of reading this weekend. In all, I think I’ve read about 80 pages of Emma and 30 or so from Of Bees and Mist. Instead, I’ve been watching movies. Lots of movies. And the whole of Stargate SG-1 season 3. A few that I would absolutely recommend are:
Taken~ Liam Neeson is a retired “problem preventor” (something like a CIA op), who just wants to get to know his daughter, who’s grown up while he’s been away on one mission after another. When she manages to manipulate him (with the help of her mother) into allowing her to go to Paris for the summer, it is against his better judgment. Within hours of arriving, she is taken by human traffickers. He makes the promise to one of them that he will find and kill them, then hops a plane to make good on his word.
Intense action and amazing mental work, Brian, the dad, borders on a superhero. Nothing will stop his mission to rescue his daughter (played by Maggie Grace, who also played Shannon, the girl who slept with her brother, on LOST, but pulls it off surprisingly well… she plays a virgin with values, WOW!) Maggie really liked it, as she loves most father-daughter kinds of shows. Even Netflix knew I’d like it, they guessed I’d give it 4.9 out of 5 stars. I’d give it a 6 or 7 if I could, tbh.
Death at a Funeral~ British humor at it’s best. This movie was one OMG! Gaff after another. Starring Rupert Graves and Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly and Watt in A Knight’s Tale), among others, it is just about the best comedy I’ve seen in a long time. Definitely 5 out of 5 stars.
Great line from the movie,”Tea can do many things, Jane, but it can’t bring back the dead.”
And I seriously think Patty Blah-blah-bitch should be banished from the show. I guess she really IS married to her perfect match. Both are rabid thiefs. Bah… and Next to her, Janice should go. Her and her lips creep me out, badly. But I do like Bruddah and Baby Baldwins. Like my siblings and I, when we all get together, the world becomes a lot more fun for everyone. 🙂 Will be watching tomorrow to see if the Bratts will be allowed back in.
Tell me, if you were stuck in the jungle like that, and two of your camp-mates left for two days, then wanted back to come back into the camp to play, would you, who’ve been stuck with mosquitoes, bullet ants, and nothin’ but beans and rice to eat, allow them, who’ve had a couple good nights air-conditioned sleep in a hotel with a shower and room service, back into the camp so they can get a few more minutes of fame and money?
Happy Memorial Day to those in the US, and Happy Sunday to everyone 🙂 Today is one of the biggest days in racing, the Indianapolis 500, and I am wishing for a nice warm and sunny race day, and for the rain to wait until AFTER the race. Actually, one of my favorite Indy finishes was Dario Franchitti’s win a couple years ago. The rain started falling in the last lap or so, and by the time he crossed the finish line, it was pouring down and his wife, the lovely Ashley Judd, came running out to kiss and love on him and congratulate her love. I’m rooting for Danica Patrick… again… maybe this will be her year 😀 Who are you rooting for?
On the book front, I’ve been a bit distracted and slow lately. But now, all of a sudden, I have an excited desire to read everything, at once, as if the end of the world is near, and I’ve got a limited time to get through every good book ever written.
And I’m having a hard time figuring out which one to read next! I think I’ll read You Suck: a Love Story by Christopher Moore next. But… I have an extra copy of Goblins! by Royce Buckingham for a giveaway, and I could read it next. OR….. I also have an extra copy to give away of The Triumph of Deborah by Eva Etzioni-Halevy, so I could read that next…. but I have Katka by Stephen Meier to read for a June 9th blog tour date, so maybe I should be responsible and read it next. And in the “being responsible” vein, I have Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan to read for Barnes & Nobles First Look program, so maybe Bees should be next. And I’ve been stalled out in Emma by Jane Austen for ages, so maybe I should focus on finishing her up.
Tainted by Brooke Morgan
The Triumph of Deborah by Eva Etzioni-Halevy
Strange But True America: Weird Tales from All 50 States by John Hafnor
Red Letters by Tom Davis
Dragon House by John Shors
Book reviews, entertaining and humorous posts, as well as memes and giveaways, In the Shadow of Mt. TBR is a fun and informative place to relax in the shade!
*drool* And Hugh Jackman 
… and would it be greedy of me to want Gerard Butler 
, too… *long, cleansing breaths…. I think I need to lay down* Oh heck, since I’m being greedy… Gimme James Callis 
, too… he was who I pictured as Max in The Book Thief.
In the Shadow of Mt. TBR 