Happy Veteran's Day

Remembering both our currently enlisted and our veterans today. Thank you for your sacrifice.

Join me on Saturday as I participate in another blog hop for Operation Write Home (formerly Cards for Heroes). OWH has asked us to showcase an Anyhero card as well as a Valentine's card. And there will be a couple of prizes for random commenters.

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is a weekly event hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. Check here for what others got last week.

I received:

The Whispering Room by Amanda Stevens from amazon.com using money from Swagbucks.
The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond using money from Swagbucks.
Go, Train, Go! from amazon.com using money from Swagbucks.
Aphrodisiac by Allyson Roy from amazon.com using money from Swagbucks.
Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan from Nonsuch Book.

Updating HTML Coding...

updating the HTML coding on my blog. If things look weird come back later please.

Sunday Salon - In Which I Can't Read

I'm still reading The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I haven't been able to read much this week since Cole has been sick. I'm enjoying it so far though and am finding that it's one of those books that I don't want to rush through because I'm afraid I'm miss something.

Christy Challenge

Strangely enough I don't read much Christian fiction. The ones I've tried have been too preachy or unrealistic so I tend to shy away from that genre. When I saw Amy and Deborah have started the Christy Challenge to expose more people to Christian fiction, I thought this would be a HUGE challenge for me and a great way to try the genre once again.

I am going to participate on the 4th Tier (any ONE Year's Winners 7-9 or mix'n'match 7-9 winners). I'll choose my books this week.

UPDATED TO ADD LIST:

I was shocked that my library owns a copy of each of the 2009 winners. That is what I will be reading for the challenge:

Beyond the Night by Marlo Schalesky
You Had Me at Good-bye by Tracey Bateman
Dogwood by Chris Fabry
Blue Hole Back Home by Joy Jordan-Lake
Until We Reach Home by Lynn Austin
From a Distance by Tamera Alexander
The Rook by Steven James
Vanish by Tom Pawlik
I Have Seen Him in the Watchfires by Cathy Gohlke

For more information, check here.

Decisions, decisions

I told you about winning a digital scrapbooking contest a few weeks ago. The prize was a $10 gift card to the digi store of my choice. I chose Designer Digitals, of course, because both Ali Edwards and Cathy Zielski (scrap idols #1 and #2) design for them. I saved the gift card for Thursdays when they have part of the store on sale. Kept waiting for some items on my wishlist to go on sale but they never did. Today I received an email telling me that the entire store is 30% off including the NEW stuff from Cathy Z! So glad I waited before spending my card. Now to decide what to buy...

The Work at Home Girls

Most of you know that I lost my job last year while I was on maternity leave with Ian. Recently I've been trying to find a way to add income without taking away from the boys. This concept is quite intriguing to me...I'll be picking up the book Making Work at Home Work very soon to see if their ideas can work for me.

The Work at Home Girls is the brainchild of Jill Hart and Mary Byers, two successful work at home moms and authors. They've teamed up to offer help, ideas, challenges and mentorship from for women that work at home. Jill and Mary have over 20 years combined experience running a business from home. One is a techie (Jill, founder of Christian Work at Home Moms and author of So You Want to be a Work-at-Home Mom) and the other is a wordsmith (Mary, freelance editor and author of five books, including Making Work at Home Work).They've teamed up to share what they wish mentors had shared with them when they started their businesses over a decade ago. The Work at Home Girls share their Simple Secrets to make your business a sucess -

Traits of Successful Work-at-Home Business Owners
Taken from Mary Byers and Jill Hart

While many people like the idea of working in their pajamas and having a minute-commute down the hallway, not everyone is cut out to work from home. Those who do so successfully have the following traits:

Passion. It’s essential to love what you do and do what you love when working from home. Passion will keep you going even when the going gets tough, as it does in even the best of jobs.

Self-Motivation. It’s important that you’re a self-starter, especially when you are your own boss. There’s no one to motivate you other than yourself when you are self-employed.

Resourcefulness. Work -at-home CEOs aren’t just the head of the company, they ARE the company. That means being the janitor, the technology guru, the marketing manager, and the brains behind the operation. Often, this requires skills you don’t possess. But when you’re resourceful, you’ll be able to find the knowledge you need to keep your business moving forward.

Confidence. It takes guts to run your own enterprise and confidence to manage it effectively. Though there will be times you experience self-doubt, overall you need to have the confidence that you can, and will, figure things out when you run into obstacles.

The Work at Home Girls is designed to help you with a home based business either in getting your company off to a strong start or by helping move you to the next level. They offer books and teleseminars. Click here for the listing of teleseminars.

And the winner is...

Kathy S!

Congratulations, Kathy. Your gift certificate code will be emailed to you shortly. Thanks to everyone who gave to Reading for Adison. I wish I could give a prize to every single one of you. Because of your generosity we raised $300!

Layout a Day Challenge October 2009 Wrap up

This past month I participated once again in Lain's Layout a Day (LOAD) Challenge. This was my 3rd time participating and my 1st time not enjoying it. I tried to do an all digital page every day and it just wasn't as fun. Towards the end I started using quick pages and called it done. A few favorites from the month:

This last one, the "pumpkins" one won a contest on Simple Scrapper. I love that template she did and thought that it turned out really well. The hardest part was picking and placing all those papers. I think there are 7 different ones!

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is a weekly event hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. You can click here to see what everyone else got last week.



I received:

The Next Queen of Heaven by Gregory Maguire from Concord Free Press. This is an awesome concept. They give out free books to people who promise to give to charity or to a person in need, read the book and then pass it on to another person who promises to give to charity or to a person in need who then reads the book...etc, etc.

Edited to add: yes, this is the author of Wicked, a book I didn't care for actually, but I thought I'd give the author another chance. He has about 25 pages to hook me before I pass him along to someone else ;-)

Halloweenie

That picture was taken in 2007 when Cole was just over a year old. Fast forward two years and this was his face today. I had been talking all week about all the little kids who would come to our house so that he could give them candy. He seemed excited at first. Then he would say "Baby Umm" as in let Ian do it.

Tonight we waited on the front porch and he did ok for the first 4 or 5 kids. That was until he turned around to find a larger kid in a Scream mask. He screamed like a little girl. I was laughing so hard I was crying but he was not amused. He wanted to go inside. I knew that the Lombardi gang was on their way so I told him that we would go in once we saw Matthew. Matthew got there a few minutes later and by that time we were out of candy anyway.

I can't believe how rude kids are. 2 little girls tried to grab a handful out of the dish and then came back a SECOND time! I told them that I had already given them candy and they told me that I hadn't. Little brats.

Then there was some older lady that was dressed up and walking around BY HERSELF with a tattered Walmart bag getting candy. Hello? Buy your own #$!#! candy lady!

We won't be giving out candy next year that's for sure. And I don't think that Cole will mind at all. Ian on the other hand...

One Year Ago...

One year ago today was my last day employed. I had great thoughts for this post but a lack of sleep and a sore throat is making my fuzzy. So I'll just say that many times happiness is a choice and that it is sometimes good to find out who your true friends actually are.

Sookie Stackhouse Challenge

I've decided to join the Sookie Stackhouse (Southern Vampires) reading challenge over at Beth Fish Reads. The challenge is to read all 9 books in the series by the end of June, 2010. I read and enjoyed Charlaine Harris's Lily Bard series so I have no doubt that I'll enjoy this one as well.

They are:

Dead Until Dark
Living Dead in Dallas
Club Dead
Dead to the World
Dead as a Doornail
Definitely Dead
All Together Dead
From Dead to Worse
Dead and Gone

I currently have the 1st of the series out from the library.

Library Loot

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva from A Striped Armchair and Marg from Reading Adventures. Check out what everyone got this week by clicking here.

I think that I may have exceeded the limit of books that the library will allow you to check out at one time since Gina asked me what all I had turned it. I told her "a ton" and she pushed them through. I don't think that has ever happened before. I am seriously considering getting a card in Cole's name so that they boys' books won't be on my card. I checked out 9 books and 1 DVD for them this week.

My new ones:

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. This 1100 page book (it's actually a trilogy collected into one!) is part of a co-read.

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. This one caused quite a buzz on the book blogs a while back. I had checked it out but didn't have time to read it and when I saw it on the shelf I grabbed it to try again.

The Good Liar by Laura Caldwell. I saw such a good review of this one that I put in on reserve immediately. Nice quick thriller.

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker. Another book that caused a book blogging buzz.

The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright. One of my best friends, Evie, suggested this one to me. My reserve copy came in a bit quicker than I was expecting. Looks like a quick read.

What new books did you check out this week?

YA Dystopian Reading Challenge

Bart from Bart's Bookshelf is hosting the YA Dystopian Reading Challenge. I've been wanting to read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins anyway so this challenge has perfect timing. I plan to read both of those as well as Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer and Uglies by Scott Westerfield.

The challenge is to read 1-4 young adult dystopian books before December 31, 2009. You can read all the details and sign up here. For an awesome list of YA dystopian books check here.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - a review and the Circus!

Title: Water for Elephants
Author: Sara Gruen
Pages: 350
Challenge(s): Clear Your Shelves
Read because: it's been on my shelves forever
Rating: 4/5 (really liked it)

Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob, who in his words is 90 or 93, one or the other. Set during the Great Depression, Jacob is studying to become a veterinarian and to join his father's practice. After a tragedy forces him to leave school, he jumps onto a train that happens to be part of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus. He's taken on and so begins the story of his time with the Benzini Brothers and of his growing relationship with the beautiful Marlena.

The story is both fascinating and horrifying. Fascinating in that it shows you a behind the scenes look into the life of the circus. Horrifying in that in showing you that look behind the scenes, you see the horrible working conditions that both the animals AND the humans have to endure. The scenes of animal abuse are heartbreaking and nauseating. (There are people who do love and want to take care of the animals though.) Jacob's schooling helps to propel him to a place in which he can help the animals.

The story also centers around Rosie, the elephant that the horrible Uncle Al, the circus impresario, so desperately covets. Rosie is a treat! Told in a series of flashbacks, it is both moving and interesting with well thought out characters and realistic language.

Not long after reading this, friends of ours asked if we would be interested in seeing the Cole Brothers circus. They had extra tickets and thought the boys would enjoy it. I'm not sure exactly how I feel about the circus since I don't think that horses were born to prance around and walk on their back legs but since I just read the book and thought that the boys would really enjoy it we went. We had a lot of fun and I couldn't help wanting to go behind the scenes to see just how much was the same and what had changed from the circus in the novel.