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Last post about SPRING READING THING!

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summer reading

Image by ruminatrix via Flickr

Tomorrow is the LAST DAY OF SPRING!  Thus, this is the end of my SPRING READING THING posts.  I feel great about what I accomplished this spring, and with the most current list of books, I will leave it.  Thanks for the challenge, Katrina at Callapidder Days!

  • Mockingbird
  • The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
  • Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
  • Heart and Soul
  • The Hundred-Foot Journey
  • Fly Away Home
  • Winter’s Garden
  • Harry Potter (2)
  • Harry Potter (3)
  • Harry Potter (4)
  • Harry Potter (5)
  • Harry Potter (6)
  • Harry Potter (7)
  • Jane Eyre
  • Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
  • Twenties Girl
  • The Carrie Diaries
  • Minding Frankie
  • Sweet Revenge

Off to read!

Spring Reading Thing Countdown…

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Spring Blossoms

Image by jnyemb via Flickr

Katrina over at Callapidder Days is hosting the Spring Thing Reading Challenge, 2011, and I’ve been participating.  It’s hard to believe that it will be done with the first day of summer (YAHOO) next week, but how exciting is that?  It was a pretty loosely defined challenge – challenge yourself to read books during the three months of spring.  You could add to the list, take away from the list, whatever you needed to do to challenge yourself.

My list has expanded greatly since my first post and one book that was on my initial list remains unread – so far.  I still have time.  It is in my possession from the library reserve.  It’s hard to say there was a favorite that stuck out in my spring reading, because there were quite a few books that I loved.  Or really liked, at any rate.  The Harry Potter series is so fun to listen to.  Jane Eyre was a great listen and I’m thankful for that experience.  I’m reading my second Maeve Binchy book of the spring and they just are so comfortable and lovely that they just feel good to read.  I really enjoyed The Carrie Diaries, meeting Carrie Bradshaw pre-NYC.  The Twenties Girl was fun fluff.  Major Pettigrew was a nice read.  Both Saving CeeCee Honeycutt and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet were sweet and not as heavy as I’d feared.

If I had to choose, I’d probably say I’m so glad I found a few Binchy books that I haven’t read.  They are reliably wonderful, in my book.

And when I’m done with Minding Frankie, I’ll start Fly Away Home.  I’ll also finish listening to book 6 in the Harry Potter series, on the list for book 7 from the library.  I’m sure that will conclude my Spring Thing Reading Challenge.

I signed up for a goodreads challenge, to read A Visit from the Goon Squad, which I have on audio, so I’ll listen to that after book 6 of HP, too.

INITIAL LIST:
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy
the next book from the library… will have to look it up as it’s downstairs.  It was a new release that grabbed me.
The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

CURRENT LIST:

  • Mockingbird
  • The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
  • Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
  • Heart and Soul
  • The Hundred-Foot Journey
  • Fly Away Home
  • Winter’s Garden
  • Harry Potter (2)
  • Harry Potter (3)
  • Harry Potter (4)
  • Harry Potter (5)
  • Harry Potter (6)
  • Harry Potter (7)
  • Jane Eyre
  • Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
  • Twenties Girl
  • The Carrie Diaries
  • Minding Frankie
  • Sweet Revenge

Well, off to read!

Audiobook Week 2011!

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It’s Audiobook Week, hosted by Devourer of Books (http://www.devourerofbooks.com/) and I couldn’t let the week go by without writing about my love of audiobooks!  (Although I’m SUPER-DUPER frustrated right now because for some reason WordPress is saving my document as BLANK!  Third time is the charm???  I’m learning and actually typing this into a word document so that I can save it and see if I can eventually publish it!  Yikes and Ugh!  Has this ever happened to anyone???)

As I say over and over again, I am currently listening to the Harry Potter series on audio and enjoying every minute of it (when I’m done I’ll have to figure out exactly how many minutes I spent listening!).  I cheated and didn’t listen to book 1, as I forgot what was book 1 and what was book 2 and so I started with book 2.  I’m currently on book 6 and really looking forward to book 7!  It has been some years, but I read all of the books before and some of them I remember more than others.  Listening has just brought them to a whole new level.  Jim Dale is an incredible narrator, providing voices for all the characters that are recognizable and not at all distracting.  What an incredible series.

I have been a commuter for 18 years, driving at least 30 miles one-way each day.  I have never minded commuting because I choose good stuff to listen to in my car.  I am totally unaware of top-40 music, but I am well-read!  I frequented the small-town library where I lived, and they had an extensive number of audiobooks so I read every book that I wanted to, and even some that I didn’t know I wanted to read.  I have listened to memoirs, thrillers, non-fiction, children and YA literature, and fiction.  When I bought my car in 2005 it only had a CD player, so I had a cassette player installed so that I could continue my habit!  Fortunately, books are now on CDs (and they were in 2005, too… just not as many!) and with the purchase of my iPod I also checked out digital audiobooks from the library system.  I live in a bigger city now and the library audiobook section is overwhelmingly large, so I often reserve a book I want to listen to rather than browse the many shelves.

Some of my favorite audiobooks include:

  • Diane Mott Davidson’s catering mysteries are always light and fun
  • Lillian Jackson Braun’s Cat Who… books are also always light and fun
  • Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series were unexpectedly interesting to me
  • Sue Grafton’s alphabet mysteries were also fun and interesting – Kinsey Milhone
  • Audrey Niffenegger’s books were good listens, although The Time Traveler’s Wife was difficult to follow with the dates and ages changing at the beginning of each chapter
  • Life of Pi was a beautiful listen
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was fun to listen to because I felt like I was in the boy’s head
  • Same with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (although I missed the visuals that are in the print version, so I re-read that one)
  • Anything written and read by Bill Bryson is a good time – he’s witty with a dry humor
  • Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto was a beautiful book, beautifully read

The thing I love best about audiobooks is that it fulfills my wish to be immersed in a story at all times.  I can listen while cooking dinner, doing the dishes, mowing the lawn and vacuuming, exercising, and driving.  Someone complained to me recently that they dreaded the tedious drive down Broadway, but getting into the car is something I rarely dread.  Thankfully my commute never entails rush hour traffic, but I think with a good audiobook I could even abide stop-and-go traffic.

I remember things differently when I listen to them rather than read the print version.  When I listen to a book I remember fewer details – like names and dates – but I remember more about the visuals drawn by the author’s words and the feelings that are evoked by the story.  So listening to a book I’ve read or reading a book that I’ve listened to is never a bad thing.  Each provides a different experience.

What are your favorite audiobooks?  What’s the longest audiobook you’ve ever listened to?  Do you find you remember things differently by listening?

Well, off to read!

A rhubarby weekend!

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image

Rhubarb muffins. Some for breakfast and some for the freezer for summer entertaining.

Although I didn’t go to Lanesboro, MN‘s Rhubarb Festival this weekend, I did make two rhubarb dishes this weekend!  Yesterday I made a Rhubarb Crumble for a beautiful summer evening “dinner on the deck” and this morning I made another batch of Rhubarb Muffins.  I love these muffins.  I made a batch on Tuesday to bring to work to share, so these are for me and my freezer.  I have more  buttermilk and more rhubarb in the freezer so maybe I’ll look for another recipe to try!

Do you have a favorite rhubarb recipe or way to eat rhubarb?  Where do you get your rhubarb?  From the farmer’s market, your own patch, or from the kindness of friends?

The weather was beautiful this weekend – absolutely perfect – so I accomplished a little reading outside.  I finally finished April’s O Magazine and started May’s.  I gotta catch up.  I also have been reading on the iPad a library book.  It’ll expire Friday so I’ll have to get busy!  It’s a little difficult to read outdoors on the iPad.  Any hints for that?  I will need to look into accessories to see if there is anything that will help other than changing the settings.

Any hints on the iPad2 and reading outside?

Well, off to read!  But I’ll share my muffin recipe first!

Yummy Rhubarb Muffins
Mix together:  1 1/2 cups Brown Sugar; 1/2 cup oil; 1 egg; 2 tsp vanilla; 1 cup buttermilk.  Beat well.
Add: 2 1/2 cups flour; 1 tsp soda; 1 tsp salt; 1 tsp baking powder.
Stir in 1 1/2 cups finely cut rhubarb and fill muffin tins.  Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon mixture (1/3 cup:1tsp) before baking.
Bake 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
*I usually use two cups frozen rhubarb and add a little baking time.

Tra La!

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Ah, one more May blog. 🙂 

It was a good holiday weekend full of hard work!  Not a lot more reading done, unfortunately, but I did finish “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” and it was enjoyable.  As I said on Goodreads, I was hesitant to read it, thinking it would be sad and heavy, but it really wasn’t!  It was sweet and told mostly from the perspective of a 12 year old boy and the 50 year old man he becomes.  It was nice.

I started listening to “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” today, and it starts out hard to listen to!  It starts out with the Prime Minister being visited by the Ministry of Magic and then Snape meeting with Bellatrix and then a lot of newspaper headlines.  I don’t think we see Harry until chapter four (maybe three), so it just feels different than the other books.  Thankfully it’s shorter than the last few, so I should be able to rip through it!

I also downloaded my second library e-book!  A Diane Mott Davidson book, just for fun.  I’ll have to see if I can get the last few books on my Spring Reading Thing list from the library.  Not many left!  Yay!

Well, not many days of work left, that’s for sure.  It’s amazing how much better I feel after time away.  I am dreading the next three days – well, maybe dreading is too strong, but I’m really hoping for strength to get through them.  I have a LOT to do!

But now, I’m off to read!  Blogs before bed!

Tick Tock…

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Clock

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And the days go by… and the blogging doesn’t happen!  Well, maybe 22 days isn’t too bad of a lag, but I think it is.  Mid-May was a very busy time, as “Take Note!”, the choir I am in, had a lot of rehearsals and performances over an 8 day span, with busy weekends and weeknights before.  It was a great time.  The third time I sang “Please, Mr. Postman” I really nailed it.  I should have front-loaded that work rather than being in panic mode.  But panic mode usually works for me, so c’est la vie!  I’ve had quite a bit of time off (for me) and haven’t been cranking through the books too much but have read a few.

I got official and final word Tuesday night / Wednesday that my position at work is being cut due to budget reasons, so the last five or six weeks I have been in crisis mode mentally.  I’m so “in my head,” as I call it.  Introverted.  Immersing myself in meaningless tasks.  Choosing audiobooks or podcasts over live conversations.  These last few days at work will be difficult – it’s hard to say goodbye over and over again – so I am looking forward to it being behind me.  June 7 can’t get here fast enough.  And all of this brings to point something I learned about myself after the flood – I really can only do one big thing at a time.  I couldn’t look for a new house until I sold my old house and had actually signed the papers.  Likewise, I can’t focus as much as I should on looking for a new job until this job is wrapped up.  So although I am going to pretend that I will do some serious job searching and applying tomorrow, most likely I will find some putzy jobs to do and then learn more about my rights through the union.  Hopefully soon I’ll be ‘normal’ again.  Ha.

But I have finished a few books since I last wrote.  I am half done with “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” and really liking it.  It’s quite easy to read, which is unexpected.  I thought it would be heavier, but maybe I’m just not there yet.  I hopefully will finish that soon.  I finished listening to “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” (see above comments about immersing myself in audiobooks) and was amazed at how much I don’t remember from reading the book!  But it was nine years ago that the book came out, so that’s a long time.  I’m sure I’ll remember less about book six and I already know that I remember very little about book seven (it was the last book I read before my house flooded and something changed in my brain that day and that book disappeared – along with a little sanity!).  I am pretty sure I’ll reach the goal of reading the books before July 19 so that is exciting!

And I also finished my very first e-book loaned from the library!  I checked out one book, just any old book I could get, as most had a waiting list, and I didn’t like it.  I couldn’t tell if it was the book I didn’t like or the e-book that I didn’t like.  So I waited and finally got one I wanted to read (“Twenties Girl” by Sophie Kinsella) – a light and fun romp – and I ripped right through it!  It was easy to read and a good, fun book.  The 14 day loan period from the library is a little pressure, so hopefully the others will come spaced out good enough for me to not panic!  I read the book in less than three days, but I had to stop reading “Hotel…” which I didn’t like to do.

And so I ramble.  I must blog more so that I don’t have quite so much to say!  Yikes! I’ll just update my “Spring Thing Reading List” below and be off to read!

Spring Thing Reading List:

  • Mockingbird
  • The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
  • Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
  • Heart and Soul
  • The Hundred-Foot Journey
  • Fly Away Home
  • Winter’s Garden
  • Harry Potter (2)
  • Harry Potter (3)
  • Harry Potter (4)
  • Harry Potter (5)
  • Harry Potter (6)
  • Harry Potter (7)
  • Jane Eyre
  • Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
  • Twenties Girl
Related articles

Did ya miss me?

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P question

??? Image via Wikipedia

Wow.  I was blogging pretty regularly for a while and then I stopped!  I’ll tell you what happened.  A few things, actually.

Reason #1- I got an iPad 2 from work.  Less need to sit at the laptop or desk top and less convenient to blog on the iPad.  I now read all my blogs, read tweets, search the library website, check email and facebook, and play Words with Friends all on the iPad!  Tonight I downloaded my first library book to the iPad!  Who has time to blog!  🙂

Reason #2 is that I received some news that kinda rocked my world a few weeks ago – they are looking at cutting my position at work for next year.  It’s been an emotional roller coaster.  Tons of sadness, a little anger, and growing excitement at what may be.  Every day at work is emotional because it is hard to talk about it with coworkers.  Hard to think about not working with them and the district families anymore – after 18 years of being there.  But I’m thankful for the support I am feeling from coworkers and parents so my new coping strategy is an attitude of gratitude.  I hope it helps me sleep at night. 🙂

Reason #3 is that Easter happened!  Monday night (5/2) when I crawled into bed, I realized that it was the third night I’d slept there since April 20.  I went to Mom and Dad’s for quite a few days during my break from work and then we left last Thursday for a trip to Denver for a wedding!  It’s a lot easier to blog when I’m home and alone.

So with all of this going on, my house is suffering.  Tonight I dealt with the piling up of clothes and tomorrow I’ll have to tackle the mail and dust.  As I said, I also tackled downloading an e-book from the library tonight.  That was quite a task.

So about the iPad.  It’ll have to go back if/when I leave my job but I really think that I will need to get my own.   I have the nook, kindle, and iBooks apps on there.  Overkill or what?  And then to download library e-books, I had to download Overdrive and Adobe.  They don’t work together?  I’ve been wondering about just getting a nook or other e-reader, but I might just need the whole iPad she-bang.

Thoughts?

And now about books (and maybe a movie) – My Spring Thing reading list is below – and there is progress!  How fun is that?  I just finished “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand” and it was good.  Not super good, but good.  I liked the characters, was confused about the inclusion of some of the characters, but would like to meet Major Pettigrew.  Or just travel to England. 🙂  Before that I read “The Hundred Foot Journey.”  Can’t remember if I blogged about that, but I liked that book, too.  Again, not life-changing, but good. I really need to get some good Indian recipes in my repertoire.

On Easter Sunday Marissa and I went to see “Water for Elephants.”  It was good, but not nearly as good as the book (of course).  You just don’t get the emotions and tensions that you get in the book.  The characters were pretty well cast, although I didn’t picture the main guy to be as cute as Pattinson.  🙂  But it was true to the story.

Spring Thing Reading List:

  • Mockingbird
  • The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
  • Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
  • Heart and Soul
  • The Hundred-Foot Journey
  • Fly Away Home
  • Winter’s Garden
  • Harry Potter (2)
  • Harry Potter (3)
  • Harry Potter (4)
  • Harry Potter (5)
  • Harry Potter (6)
  • Harry Potter (7)
  • Jane Eyre
  • Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

Well, off to read!  On the iPad!

It’s a Spring Thing!

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Spring Thing Logo

Image by Zeptonn via Flickr

If I spent as much time reading books as I did reading blogs, I’d have put away quite a few more books in 2011!  But I do enjoy reading what others are reading, how they read, what kinds of things they like to read, and how they write about what they read!  Over on http://callapidderdays.com a “Spring Reading Thing” started!  I’m going to participate because it’s a simple event.

Simply create a list (can be ever-changing) of books that you want to read this spring – March 20 – June 20!  Write about it.  Link to her site.  Write about it at its completion.  Sounds simple enough!  And so, with the help of my stack of books from the library and my goodreads account, here is a start on my list of books TBR this spring!

Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy
the next book from the library… will have to look it up as it’s downstairs.  It was a new release that grabbed me.
The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

I think that’s a good list to start with.  I will finish Jane Eyre this week probably, and am looking forward to finding out what happens.  Then I will listen to Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand.

So, do you have a list of books you want to read this spring?

Off to read!

“One Day” by David Nicholls

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Never Judge a Book by its Movie

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Read a big chunk in the book yesterday and then finished it up today.  I loved the premise – one day a year in their life – and I liked the characters.  I loved how it ended but I didn’t love some of the things that happened.  I don’t want to be **SPOILERY** so I am not going to say more than that.  I look forward to discussing it more with others who have read it!

I’m going to start a QUOTES page.  I love quotes and collecting them, and I think it will work to start a page and continually add to it!  So, send your favorite quotes about books or reading or the life of being a reader or a writer or even a quote from your favorite book my way!  Yay!

I’m not so sure I’m crazy about wordpress.  The blogging features I like.  I like the current design of the blog and the widgets available.  I don’t find it difficult to post, although it took some research to be able to incorporate graphics easily.  But I love to read my blog subscriptions and find it very easy with blogger, but through wordpress my blog subscriptions take FOREVER to load!  If they will at all!  (Yesterday and today they won’t.)  I moved all my blog subscriptions about books or writing over to wordpress, since it’s a booky blog, but that maybe wasn’t a great idea.  Hmm.

Any others experience the same frustration?  Ideas to lessen my frustration?

Do you have favorite quotes?  Send them my way!

Have you read “One Day”?  What do you think?

Does anyone else have OSCAR FEVER???  I’m ready and excited to watch!

Well, off to read!

Yeah sirsi!

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Cover of One Day

Sirsi is where the emails come from to let me know that books I’ve reserved at the library are ready to be picked up! Yeah! So tonight after work I sat down with the last forty pages of “Faking It” by Jennifer Crusie and then headed to the library to pick up “One Day” by David Nicholls (finally!) and “Juliet, Naked” by Nick Hornby.

I find the Rochester Public Library a little difficult to navigate. Well, maybe not difficult to navigate but overwhelming. Summer of ’09 I started with the fiction in the Zs, thinking I’d work backwards, and I read quite a few fun books, but soon that didn’t work for me. This past summer I referred to my goodreads TBR account via my smart phone and would look for specific books – either on the shelf or in audio version – but very rarely would I find them shelved! So this winter I’ve gotten a little smarter and I started reserving the books so that when I go in I just need to go to the reserve shelf and check out! It’s nice to be able to get exactly what you’re looking for sometimes – but there is also something about wandering around in the stacks, too. I’m sure I’ll do a little of both – reserve and wander.

Other random thoughts:

  • I didn’t know “One Day” was going to be made into a movie, coming out in July!
  • “Faking It” was a fun easy read. Not great but witty.
  • I’m falling behind in my magazine reading.
  • I’m not going to fall into the meme trap again – I hope. Maybe I’ll come up with my own weekly blogging themes – I do love themes, after all! Not that I’d ever blog every day, but how about Saturday or Sunday Smorgasbord? Monday Musings? Teatime Tuesday? Thursdays Thoughts? Ugh… ideas welcome!
  • “Water for Elephants” will be out in the theatres before we know it!
  • I’m super excited to watch the Oscar’s this year!

I think that’s all for tonight! My TBR list now includes: “One Day,” “Juliet, Naked,” and “Plain Truth” – probably in that order! Book club discussion for “Plain Truth” is March 8 so we’ll see if I need to rearrange the order. Good times! I love to read and talk about books!

Off to read!