Exceedingly Mundane

I mentioned the other day in my Nada, Nothing post that I had a few books I wanted to talk about. I really hate doing “book reviews” or trying to come up with something original to say about a book. And I almost hate posting about books in general, because I tend to sound like a broken record. I usually like most every single book I read. I think because I tend to pick books and authors that I know I’ll like, so I’m rarely disappointed.

In spite of that, I wanted to do a quick recap of some of the books I have enjoyed lately 🙂

I recently read “On Mystic Lake” by Kristin Hannah. I think I have read one book by this author before, but I can’t remember! I know I have 2 or 3 of her books in my TBR pile, that I have picked up at a library sale. This book was what I call “typical women’s fiction”. All about a woman who thinks she is happy, with a good marriage, until her husband looks over at her in the car and tells her he doesn’t love her and wants a divorce. It’s about her journey after that, her return to her childhood home in the tiny town of Mystic Lake, her reconnecting with a past love, and the story flows from there. I was in the mood for this kind of book, I guess, because I really enjoyed it!

After that, I switched gears. Already missing football season and dreading the long months until training camp, I decided to go ahead and read “Playing for Pizza” by John Grisham. I enjoyed this one also. I’m hoping to get Tim to read it. But, with the silly time changing so early this year, I envision him out playing golf every chance he gets. Not much chance of him staying inside with me and reading a book now!

For several years now, Tim has been wanting me to read the “Bourne” books by Robert Ludlum. These are the books that the movies with Matt Damon are supposedly based on. However, Tim has told me for ages that the movies do not follow the plot of the book – not at all. So, after much prompting from him, I started this series. I must admit, I struggled a bit with the first one, “The Bourne Identity“. It’s not that the plot wasn’t good, but it was just so long. And wordy. Ludlum seems to take a few pages to tell one little bit of info, he’s very long-winded. The hardest thing, though, was that this was a small paperback with really small type. My eyes are starting to show my age and I have trouble with really small print. We own these books, so I didn’t go check them out of the library, but I might need to do that for the next two. I did enjoy it, but boy, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I finally finished it!

After I struggled through The Bourne Identity, I decided I wanted to read something light, so I picked up the 7th of 8 books in the “Southern Sisters mysteries” by Anne George. Oh, how I love these books! If you like cozy mysteries or especially, if you like reading about the South and how we really live down here (such as, stopping at the Piggly Wiggly to pick up something for supper), then you will like these books. Me, I LOVE them! I am so sorry to see them coming to an end. I’ve got one more, since I just finished “Murder Carries a Torch“. Sigh.

I saw at Amazon that Sophie Kinsella had a new book coming out, so I immediately went to my library’s website and did what I always do now – go to their new books section and look for the book, then get myself on the wait list. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather when they called and said I could come pick up the book! I was the first one on the list, apparently, and so I went and picked it up. I LOVED this book as well! I have read every Sophie Kinsella book, and while I love the Shopaholic ones, I must admit that I love the stand-alone books of hers more. I really enjoyed “Undomestic Goddess” and “Can You Keep a Secret”, and the new one, “Remember Me?” was no exception. I devoured this book and had it back to the library in just a few days. Loved it!

For the record, I’ve read 15 books so far this year, for a total of 5,013 pages. Up next is a book I borrowed from my sister Gail called “Lost in NashVegas” by Rachel Hauck. I think I’m really going to like this one! It’s a Christian fiction book about a girl moving from small-town Alabama to Nashville to pursue her dreams of being a songwriter. Now, if that kind of book doesn’t have my name written all over it, I don’t know what does 😀

Happy Reading!

P.S. I ordered a couple of new books from Amazon and they are supposed to be here today or tomorrow. Do you want to see a photo of what I got?! 🙂

I’ve been really good so far in 2008. I haven’t bought any new books, and I’ve been working on my TBR pile. I have over 50 books in my “to be read” pile. I have only gotten 3 books, a trilogy by Tracie Peterson, from the library, way back around New Years. Everything else I’ve read has been from my own bookcases, so I’ve been working on whittling down my huge pile of books. Plus, I have not bought a book for myself this calendar year. I felt like I deserved a reward!

So, this past week, I made up for it! 🙂 My sister Gail came for several days to visit, and we went shopping. Had a blast, as always, and Gail was sweet enough to indulge me and go browse to my heart’s content at Lifeway Christian bookstore. We spent a while checking out the “bargain book” shelves, and I scored the second and third books in the Mindy Starns Clark “Smart Chicks” mystery series. I haven’t read any of her books, but have been wanting to. So when I found each book for under 5.00 each, I snatched them up. Now, I have to order the first one from Amazon, and then I can get started.

We stayed up really late Friday night playing Text Twist (technically, it was Saturday morning, and if you knew me in real life, you’d know that was a feat in and of itself), so I really wanted to sleep late Saturday morning. But no, my local library was having its thrice yearly “Friends of the Library” sale. Believe me, that’s about the only thing that would get me out of bed early. 🙂 The bottom 4 books in the stack were all I found at that sale. I saw a lot of books that I wanted to read, but opted to wait and check them out of the library rather than purchasing them and adding even more books to my TBR pile. 🙂 In case you can’t see them in the photo, they are “Maggie Sweet” by Judith Minthorn Stacy, “Sea Glass” by Anita Shreve, “Booked to Die” by John Dunning and “Twelve Ordinary Men” by John MacArthur. Yeah, more books!

I finished my third book in Annie’s “What’s In a Name Challenge” a couple of days ago. This is a book that I picked up on a bargain table at Barnes and Noble quite a while back, so it was good to finally get it off my TBR shelf and actually read!

I must admit, I was a bit worried about reading this book. The only other book I’ve read by Shreve (that I can remember) is “The Pilot’s Wife”. A couple of tidbits of trivia about this – it’s one of only a couple of Oprah’s book club books that I’ve read. The most notable bit of trivia is that, as best I can remember, “A Pilot’s Wife” is the very first book I ever ordered from Amazon.com. If I remember, it was back in 1999 and I had been thinking about ordering from Amazon and finally did and ordered this book.

Ok, back to the current book. I didn’t just love the other book I read by Anita Shreve, but the blurb on the back of Light on Snow looked promising. I won’t type it all up here, but you can read the blurb or reviews here at Amazon. I worried for nothing, though, because I really enjoyed this book. It hooked me right at the very beginning and it was one of those “hard to put down” kind of books for me. I read it very quickly and was very happy with it! I enjoyed the writing, the beauty of what she was describing, the characters and how she developed them, and the overall plot. Very engaging book 🙂

Have you read any of her books? If so, do you have one to recommend? As I said, I wasn’t thrilled with “The Pilot’s Wife” and so I stayed away from her books for a long time. I know I’ve read some reviews and blurbs on other blogs about books of her that are good, and not so good. If you have read one by Anita Shreve that you liked, leave me a comment and let me know. I imagine my local library has most all, if not all, of her books. Thanks!

So, for the record, I’ve completed 3 of the 6 books I picked for the “What’s In a Name” challenge. As far as this year goes, I’ve read 11 books, for a total of 3,571 pages. Up next is “Playing for Pizza” by John Grisham. I’ve read a lot of girlie books lately, so it’s time to switch it up a bit. 🙂

Happy Reading!

I finished my second book in Annie’s “What’s In a Name Challenge” yesterday. It’s a book I bought the week it came out, since I absolutely loved the Mitford books by Jan Karon. Normally, I don’t read books like this right away, no matter how much I look forward to getting them. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I like to hold on to them, and savor them, and “save them for a rainy day”, so to speak. Mostly, I don’t like to read them right away, because that means it will just be all that much longer before the next one comes out. I think, somewhere in my warped mind, that the longer I force myself to wait, the sooner it will be until I have a new one by a beloved author to read. 😕

That said, I went ahead and read this, as I chose it for my “Place” category in the reading challenge. So, I have now completed 2 of the 6 books I chose for the challenge.

I wish I were better at reviewing books. I don’t feel like I’m articulate enough to convey what I felt about the book, or give it an honest review. Mostly, my reviews consist of whether or not I liked the book! In this case, I’m even hard pressed to come up with a good answer for that. Yes, I liked “Home to Holly Springs”, but there were things about the book I wasn’t thrilled with. I was so happy to return to characters I know and love, like Father Tim, Cynthia and Dooley, as well as others that were just mentioned in passing, like Peggy, Tommy Noles and his parents. On one hand, I enjoyed Father Tim’s flashbacks to his childhood and reading about his early life. On the other hand, sometimes the jumping back and forth really got on my nerves 🙂

I will admit, the plot was not what I expected. I’m not sure what exactly I did expect, but this was not it. I did enjoy the book, don’t get me wrong. I love Jan Karon and the way she writes. She’s like a comfortable old quilt to me, even with the “Southern drawl” she gave a lot of the dialect in this new book. The thing is – you see – is that I tend to talk like that, and know many people who do! 😀 I think sometimes that bothers me about a book; that people will think my corner of the world just a redneck, backwards, hick kind of place, and it’s not. I think she did a good job to portray it as more, full of average and even good people. Granted, I’ve never been to Holly Springs, but there are many other places in Mississippi that I have been, that are very similar to what she describes. Anyway, I did like the book, but I didn’t just love it, like I had thought I would. I am looking forward to the next one though, to see where she goes from here with the story and characters.

For the record, I’ve read 5 books so far this year, for a total of 1,830 pages read. Up next is the second Ashley Stockingdale book by Kristin Billerbeck – “She’s Out of Control“. I’m looking forward to some light, very funny Christian chick-lit after completing “Home to Holly Springs”.

Happy Reading!!!

This week’s topic: Let’s Review

This week’s question is suggested by Puss Reboots:

How much do reviews (good and bad) affect your choice of reading? If you see a bad review of a book you wanted to read, do you still read it? If you see a good review of a book you’re sure you won’t like, do you change your mind and give the book a try?

Good question! My answer is not very interesting, I’m afraid. I do read reviews, both at other reader blogs and also in the paper and online. If I see a bad review of a book, it will make me think twice about trying it. If I do try it, I will either check it out of the library or maybe pick it up for a low price at a library sale. I rarely buy books to read unless I know I will love them. And the same goes for reading them – I usually only read a book if I know the author or genre and I’m fairly sure it’s something I will like and enjoy. I’m afraid I’m not very adventurous with breaking out of my comfort zone and reading books that are not my “usual” type. 🙂

Happy Reading!

I do love to read, but I’ve been resisting joining all of the great reading challenges out there. I’ve decided to make an exception to that, and participate in Annie’s “What’s In a Name” reading challenge for 2008. I decided to go through my ever-growing TBR pile and find books that I have bought and want/need to read, thereby killing two birds with one stone. Here’s the link to the blog Annie setup for this challenge, and here’s the basic guidelines:

“What’s In A Name?” Reading Challenge

Dates: January 1, 2008 through December 31, 2008

The Challenge: Choose one book from each of the following categories.

1. A book with a color in its title. Examples might include: The Amber Spyglass, The Red Pony, Blue Blood

2. A book with an animal in its title. Examples might include: The Hound of the Baskervilles, To Kill a Mockingbird, Julie of the Wolves

3. A book with a first name in its title. Examples might include: Jane Eyre, the Harry Potter books, Anne of Green Gables

4. A book with a place in its title. Examples might include: From Russia with Love, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Out of Africa

5. A book with a weather event in its title. Examples might include: The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Red Storm Rising, Tornado Alley

6. A book with a plant in its title. Examples might include: Where the Red Fern Grows, The Name of the Rose, Flowers for Algernon

–You may overlap books with other challenges, but please don’t use the same book for more than one category. (For example, you can use The Red Pony for either a “color” book or an “animal” book, but not for both.)

Here’s my choices:

1. Color in the title – “Windy City Blues” by Sara Paretsky — Completed January 2008

2. Animal in the title – “The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog” by Elizabeth Peters– Completed September 2008

3. First Name in the title – “Julia’s Hope” by Leisha Kelly– Completed September 2008

4. Place in the title – “Home to Holly Springs” by Jan Karon — Completed January 2008

5. Weather Event in the title – “Light on Snow” by Anita Shreve — Completed February 2008

6. Plant in the title – “Sweetgrass” by Mary Alice Monroe — Completed April 2008

Thanks, Annie, for hosting this challenge. I look forward to reading these during the year, and knocking a few books off my TBR pile 🙂

I had so many books I wanted to blog about, but I think rather than blogging about them separately, I’ll just do one “skim over” post. I’ve read a lot of books since the last time I chatted about them, so there’s a lot of ground to cover.

First, I’m happy to report that I met my personal reading goal I set for myself this year. Last year, in 2006, I read 70 books, so I started off by setting a goal of 75 books. A nice round number! When I reached that goal, I still had a few months left in the year, so I stretched my goal to 100 books. Another nice round number. Secretly, I was shooting for 104. Not a round number, but a good one. With 52 weeks in the year, that works out to an average of 2 books a week. I’m happy to say that I did that this year, and I’m very happy about it 🙂 I did read several “smaller” books. Some short novellas and short, sweet Christmas books. But as I was chatting with one of the librarians a couple of weeks ago, she said “a book is a book. If they sell it in the bookstore and we have it on our shelves, it counts as a book. It doesn’t matter if it has 125 pages to it, or 475 pages to it. It’s still a book”. And she’s right.

I did read several Christmas books this year, which has become a yearly tradition for me. I like the shortness of them, when my time is limited and everything else is so busy and hectic. But more than that, I like the message and story that they tell. They are usually uplifting, happy little books and I enjoy those. Especially at this time of year. I read the following Christmas books this year, and enjoyed them all:

The Christmas Shoes by Donna Van Liere
The Christmas Blessing by Donna Van Liere
The Gift of Christmas Present by Melody Carlson
Once Upon a Christmas (2 books in 1) by Lauraine Snelling and Lenora Worth
The Christmas Pearl by Dorothea Benton Frank

Before I started reading these, I read and thoroughly enjoyed some very sweet, very old-fashioned Christian fiction books, called the Tales from Grace Chapel Inn. These are Guidepost Books that apparently were issued quite a while back, and I believe they are updating and re-releasing them. I have read the first four, the two that were released in 2006 and the two released in 2007, and I just loved them. They are not for everyone though — they are very very old-fashioned and straight-laced type of books. I thought they were charming, and they were very easy to read and very predictable. For me, they were just the kind of books I was in the mood for at the time. I am hoping they release two more this year, as I love the characters and am wanting to read more from this series. The first four I read were:

Back Home Again by Melody Carlson
Recipes and Wooden Spoons by Judy Baer
Hidden History by Melody Carlson
Ready to Wed by Melody Carlson

Loved them! I am currently reading the first book in the Alaskan Quest series by Tracie Peterson. A year or two ago, I read and really liked the three books in the Yukon Quest series, and I had these follow-up books in my Amazon wish list for a while (the Alaskan ones). I was happy to see them at my library’s website listing of new books, so I am on the wait list for them. I have the first one, and have started it, but won’t finish it before the New Year. I am hoping to get them all read in January. I have so many series books that I want to read, but I’m trying really hard to limit myself to how many series I start, before I complete some others already in progress 😀

I also won a book from Deena at “A Peek at my Bookshelf“, a book by Lisa Samson, who is a new-to-me author that I have been wanting to read. I won a copy of “Hollywood Nobody” and I’m looking forward to reading it sometime in 2008. I also signed up for and won an advance copy of “Firefly Lane” by Kristin Hannah, as part of LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program. I haven’t gotten that one yet, but that’s ok – I have plenty of books to keep me busy in the mean time!

Lastly, I think I am going to participate in a reading challenge. That post to follow….

Happy Reading!

This week’s topic: Catalog

Do you use any of the online book-cataloguing sites, like Library Thing or Shelfari? Why or why not? (Or . . . do you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking to?? (grin))

If not an online catalog, do you use any other method to catalog your book collection? Excel spreadsheets, index cards, a notebook, anything?
Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

I haven’t played in the last couple of weeks, but this week’s question is right up my alley. I actually looked at this and agonized over this very subject for a long time. I catalogued our DVD collection a while back, but I used some free software that I downloaded and did it all on my local PC. I was considering doing the same with my books. I know several bloggers who use both LibraryThing and Shelfari, and was having a really hard time deciding whether to try one of those or do it locally on my hard drive. That solution was provided by a dear friend who gifted me with a one year subscription to LibraryThing. I set it all up and entered all of my books, and I love it! I have been keeping it up to date and plan to continue my subscription next year. I love that they have a widget that I can use on the side of my blog to show random books from my library. I love how easy it is to use – simply enter the ISBN number from the back of the book and bam, it’s added to your library. The only downfall that I’ve found so far is that it is online – I don’t have this info in my PDA to have with me. I have to rely on my memory (oh, the horror!) to remember if I already own a book when I’m browsing in a bookstore. Thankfully, I do the majority of my book purchasing online, so I can easily flip over to LibraryThing to see what I have by that author, in that series, etc. I really like LibraryThing. Great question!

This week’s topic: Preservatives

Today’s question comes from Conspiracy-Girl:
I’m still relatively new to this meme so I’m not sure if this has been asked yet, but I’m curious how many of us write notes in our books. Are you a Footprint Leaver or a Preservationist?

Well, another really easy question for me. I don’t write in my books at all. I *might* neatly print my name in the front, if it was a book I thought I might loan to someone and I wanted to make sure I got it back. I never underline in my books, make notes in the margins, or even turn down the corners. I think it’s something that was ingrained in me growing up. I never mar my books in any way. 🙂 So, yes, I’m a total Preservationist!

This week’s topic: Oh, Horror!

What with yesterday being Halloween, and all . . . do you read horror? Stories of things that go bump in the night and keep you from sleeping?

I thought about asking you about whether you were participating in NaNoWriMo, but I asked that last year. Although . . . if you want to answer that one, too, please feel free to go ahead and do both, or either, your choice!

Well, another really easy one for me this week. No on both counts!

As for horror, I don’t want anything to do with books or TV shows or movies that are even remotely scary or suspenseful. I don’t like things that go bump in the night. I don’t like things popping up on movies where I gasp and my heart beats. I don’t like to be scared. And believe me, I’m easily scared. I can be in our bathroom, brushing my teeth and Tim can walk around the corner and say something to me. I yell, scream and spew out toothpaste because he frightened me – in the middle of the day, when I knew he was in the house. So, no – horror is not a good genre for me 😀

As for NaNoWriMo, I don’t participate. I’m not much of a writer, although I have visions of grandeur and imagine I could write a best selling book one day. Of course, I have very little interest in actually sitting down to write a paragraph, much less a chapter or book. 🙂

This week’s topic: Read With Abandon

I would enjoy reading a meme about people’s abandoned books. The books that you start but don’t finish say as much about you as the ones you actually read, sometimes because of the books themselves or because of the circumstances that prevent you from finishing. So . . . what books have you abandoned and why?

Well, I haven’t participated in this meme in a week or so. I thought I’d play along today 🙂

This is a good one for me. I love to read, but I seem to be pretty settled in my reading habits. I don’t usually pick up books or authors that I don’t like. I think in the last 3 years, there have only been a handful of books that I didn’t really like or love. I can think of three off the top of my head, but I did go ahead and finish them. I didn’t really enjoy them, but I have a completion complex, so I usually struggle through until the end. I can’t think of a single book that I’ve read in the last few years that I abandoned and didn’t finish. I think I know what kind of books and authors I like, and I tend to stick with those. I don’t stray too much out of my comfort zone.

Let’s see, the ones I can think of that I didn’t enjoy (I didn’t abandon them, but I didn’t like them either) are: “Talk to the Hand” by Lynne Truss. This was just not something I’m interested in; it was more like a textbook than an enjoyable, escapism, fiction book, which is what I enjoy reading. “The Falls” by Joyce Carol Oates. Ugh. I disliked this book. I do not want to try anything else from this author. It was boring, depressing, and basically had no redeeming factors for me. Ick. The other one that I didn’t really enjoy was “The Last Days of Dogtown” by Anita Diamant. Now, I picked this one up without knowing anything about it, because I loved, loved, loved her book, “The Red Tent”. This one was just not something I wanted to read about though. Depressing and a huge downer. About a dying village and all bad things happening to the villagers. Didn’t enjoy this one. I like books that have a redeeming quality, good characters, a happy ending. 🙂

Happy Reading!

I finished a great set of books that I borrowed from my sweet mother-in-law a few weeks ago. They are by Christian author Colleen Coble, who was a new author for me. I will definitely look for more of her books, as I really enjoyed these! I think these will probably always be my favorite of hers though, since the subject matter is one I love – dogs. The main character – Bree Nicholls – has a search and rescue dog named Samson. I fell instantly in love with Samson! What a magnificent dog, and I loved reading about him, about Bree, her family and friends, and the plots that Mrs Coble wove in these three books. I’d go so far as to call them a Christian version of a cozy mystery, as there was a bit of mystery and suspense to each one. Whether it is kidnapping, murder, an unexplained death, something is always happening in the small town of Rock Harbor, located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I got totally caught up in their stories and really enjoyed them. I hated to see them end, which is always a sign that I love the books and characters.

I also discovered that not only does Colleen Coble have her own website (www.colleencoble.com), but she also contributes to a Christian writers blog called “Girls Write Out“. The group posting here includes Coble, Kristin Billerbeck, Denise Hunter and Diann Hunt. It’s become a new favorite place to lurk and read. 🙂

For the record, that makes 93 books read so far this year, for a total of 27,611 pages. Up next is a cooking themed cozy mystery by another new-to-me author, Miranda Bliss. The book is called “Cooking Up Murder” and is the start of another series. After I finish this one, I’m going to read the next in the Cedar Cove series for me, #6 (6 Rainier Drive) by Debbie Macomber. I’m trying to be good and work on series I have already started, even though I have tons of other books I want to read, and lots more new series I want to start. I hope to find some time soon to make a separate page here on my blog to track all of the series books that I have started, completed, and also hope to read in the future. One day… one day!

Happy Reading!

I finally finished the five books in the “Firstborn” series by Karen Kingsbury. I had read the Redemption series a year or two ago, and I loved those books. I think they are still my favorite of all of these Baxter family related books that I have read, but I really did enjoy the Firstborn ones. I had a hard time getting them all at the library. I think I kept running into several other people reading them at the same time I was, as I had to get on the wait list for most of them.

What can I say about these books? They’re really well-written, contemporary Christian fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed them! I like reading series books because I like to see characters developed, I like to see storylines extended and played out. When you combine these books with the Redemption series, you’ve already got a series of 10 books. Now, once she finishes writing all four (or is it five?) of the upcoming Sunrise series, the next books following these same people and families, I will have to read those. I love having storylines that just keep growing and evolving and extending.

I didn’t do individual reviews on each of these books, and this isn’t really meant to be a post on my review of these books. Mostly what I wanted to do was write down one thing that really got me in this last book, “Forever”. In Forever, the author presents (by way of the matriarch of these books, who has since passed away) a list of “Ten Secrets of a Happy Marriage”. Maybe these came from another book. I don’t read much non-fiction so these might be borrowed or paraphrased. In this book and this list, there’s also mention of the “love languages” and I have yet to read that book, although I have a copy (“The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman). Anyway, irregardless of the source or author, these are wonderful guidelines, and something I need to remember. Every single day. Tim and I both try to work hard, every day, to make our marriage stronger, happier, and more fulfilling. Some days he does better and some days I do better, which I guess is normal. Anyway, I thought if I put them here, I’d have them to refer to easily. Especially since this is a library book and I don’t have a copy on my bookshelves. 🙂

As listed in the book… “Ten Secrets to a Happy Marriage“, by Elizabeth Baxter:

1. God has you here to serve one another. Love acted out is serving.

2. Women need respect and nurturing. Love your wife so she knows you’d lay your life down for her. Continue to date her and admire her. Share a hobby – find something you can do to have fun together.

3. Laugh often.

4. Be patient. Love crumbles quickly under the weight of unmet expectations.

5. Spend more time trying to fix yourself than your spouse.

6. Keep short accounts. The Bible says “Do not let the sun go down while you are angry.” Make it a habit to forgive.

7. Determine up front that divorce is not an option.

8. Learn about love languages. Not all people show love or receive it the same way. You want a back rub and your spouse wants a clean kitchen. The love languages are fairly simple: acts of service, time, physical touch, gifts and words of affirmation. Learn them. Love is better received when it’s in the language that a person speaks.

9. Words of affirmation are a love language for all men.

10. Men are born to be leaders. He cannot lead unless she gives him the confidence to do so. If you love your husband, build him up. Confident men do not seek love outside the home.

Happy Reading, everyone!

I updated my Project365 blog last night, and it seems that I’m doing more blogging over there than here. Go figure. I assume that once this project is over, I’ll go back to more “normal” blogging here, whatever that means. I’ll go back to posting photos here, and talking about what we are doing or did. I just don’t seem to have an interesting enough life to maintain entries on two blogs 🙄

Let’s see… I blogged here and here about what all we did over the weekend. This past weekend had a lot of golf! I went with Tim on Friday afternoon to the golf course, to hang out with him. It’s Tim’s most ardent desire in life that I learn to love golf, want to play, and that we can go together to play golf 5 or 6 days a week. Sadly, this is not my goal in life! I really don’t like golf that much. The idea of taking that piece of metal and swinging at that little ball holds absolutely no appeal to me at the moment 🙂 Saturday was also a day of golf – for Tim. He went to the PGA tournament that took place near our house. Sunday, my dad drove up and we all went to the German Fest near our house.

We’re back into a decent slate of watching TV most every night. We’re trying a couple of new shows – Chuck on Mondays, Bionic Woman on Wednesdays and Tim started watching and liked “Life” on NBC on Wednesday night (right after Bionic Woman). We’ve cut way down on our movie watching from Netflix, now that all of the fall shows have started. We have, however, picked up a new TV show, via Netflix. Tim watched several episodes of “Heroes” last year and was always trying to get me to watch. This year, as last year, I felt like I had enough shows that I watched and hated to start anymore, so I resisted. Now, we are renting Season 1 of Heroes via Netflix and I’m already hooked. He was right – this is my kind of show. Sigh. We’re also still watching, slowly, the Gilmore Girls on DVD. We’ve made it through 3 seasons and have ordered the next two on DVD. And, of course, there’s LOTS of football on TV! 😀

I’ve still been reading a fair amount. I’ve recently finished “1st to Die” by James Patterson – the first in the Women’s Murder Club series books. I had wanted to read one of these to see how gory or descriptive of violence they were. Nothing I can’t handle, so I’ve got another new series to read. I wanted to read one of these before the new TV show started, based on these books. I think it starts in mid-October and stars Angie Harmon. I hope it will be a good show! Let’s see, I’ve read another couple of books that were just so-so for me. I read “The Tavern on Maple Street” by Sharon Owens. I’ve read one other by Owens before, she’s very similar to Maeve Binchy, a good Irish writer. It was good, just so-so for me. As was “Underdog” by Laurien Berenson. She apparently writes cozy type mysteries with dog titles, so I had hoped I would love these. This one I read was just okay for me too. The dog is a Standard Poodle and there was a lot in this book about dog shows, and grooming dogs for showing, which doesn’t interest me at all. I might give one more of her books a chance, someday. I also finished “The Redemption of Sarah Cain” by Beverly Lewis, another good Amish book. Up next, I have another cozy mystery by Laura Levine. I read one by her recently entitled “This Pen for Hire” and enjoyed it. Hopefully I will like this new one “The PMS Murder” also. Then, after that, I have the last book in the Firstborn series by Karen Kingsbury (“Forever“) and the most recent one by Janet Evanovich “Lean Mean Thirteen“. I have been on the wait list for a long time for the latest Stephanie Plum book. I started out as number 16 on the wait list at the library, and now my time has come! 🙂 Oh, and for the record, I’ve completed 87 books so far this year, with a total of 25,855 pages read. 🙂

I have also checked out a couple of cookbooks from the library, and have been busy going through those. I’ve gone through one completely – Taste of Home Everyday Light Meals. I’ve copied out over 20 recipes that interested me. It looks like a good cookbook, but since I’ve gone through and “got what I wanted”, I won’t be buying this one for my shelves. I’ll post a listing on the extended page of the recipes I copied out. If anyone would like to see a copy of the recipe, I can email it to you. I haven’t made any of these recipes yet, so I can’t vouch for how they taste!

I’ve still be in a bit of a fall cleaning mode around here. Heaven help me, but I’ve even started cleaning windows! Gasp. That doesn’t happen very often. I wonder if the earth stopped rotating on its axis for a bit 😀

Hope everyone has a great day!

Click for recipe listing… Read the rest of this entry »

I have a quick question and wanted to get a little feedback. I’m starting to enter our books into LibraryThing. A dear, sweet friend sent me a one-year gift subscription she had won (but she is already a lifetime member), so I am going to get busy and start cataloging our books. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, so this is just what I needed to get me jump-started on another project.

I had looked quite a bit into downloading a stand-alone program to my computer, and using that to catalog our books. I did that with our DVD’s (although it’s not totally up to date, boo-hoo). But then I thought — what’s the fun in that? Half of the fun of programs like LibraryThing, Shelfari and others is that you can share, see what others are reading, and it’s so cute with the covers added. I don’t think the standalone program I was looking at had cover art. 🙂

Anyway, I’ve started with one of our bookcases, and I have more to go. My question is – if you were entering your collection of books (or if you already have), would you enter your cookbooks? I have a LOT of cookbooks, a couple of shelves worth. I love cookbooks. I check some out of the library (see yesterday’s photo post here), to see if I like them and would buy them. I want a lot more than I buy. I mean, seriously, as much as I love them, I am realistic. I don’t use them as much as I should. I tend to find recipes online these days, either via Menu Plan Monday or sites like AllRecipes.com. But, back to my question, if you were entering your books in an online system, would you enter cookbooks too, or just fiction/non-fiction books?

OK, I’m off to fix me some lunch. I have some leftover brown rice, so I’m going to make myself some fried rice and fix an eggroll (some in the freezer, don’t think for a minute that I make my own!) 😀

Have a great day!

P.S. When I get most of my books entered, I’ll put my LibraryThing widget on my sidebar. I currently have a list on my sidebar that contains books I have yet to read. Under my sidebar, in my TBR List. I am trying to decide whether to keep that page or just use LibraryThing. Decisions, decisions 🙄

**UPDATE**: Ok, well I decided to go ahead and enter my cookbooks. I think I have most of my books entered now. I’ve placed the widget on my sidebar 🙂