Saturday Snapshot - New Mommy and Baby

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce @ At Home with Books

Obviously I didn't take this picture since I'm the new mom holding the baby :)

I have a very serious look on my face bc this is my middle child and she had a little trouble breathing when she was first born and spent her first couple of days hooked up to all kinds of monitors, etc.

I was relieved to finally be holding her in my arms.

She is almost 17 now and participating in the Jr. Miss program tonight.

Wow!

It's called Distinguished Young Women now...and she is certainly growing into a Distinguished Young Woman :)

Book Blogger Hop

The Book Blog Hop is hosted each week by Jennifer at Crazy for Books.

In the spirit of the Twitter Friday Follow, the Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word! This weekly BOOK PARTY is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read!

This week's question:

"If I gave you £50 (or $80) and sent you into a bookshop right now, what would be in your basket when you finally staggered to the till?"

My answer:

I have a TBR list that is so long sometimes I forget what's on there :/  The only problem I ever have when I go to a bookstore is self-control...which book(s) do I want the most right now?  I love to browse the sale tables and shelves to get more bang for my buck...I don't care to read small paperbacks so if I can get a hardback or oversized paperback for less than the price of a paperback or Kindlebook, I'm thrilled.

After browsing my amazon wishlist, these are the books I would buy with my $80 :)

The first two are newer books that I probably won't be able to wait on...but the rest of them are books I've had on my TBR list way too long.

And I Shall Have Some Peace There (15.10)

Blood Bones and Butter (14.30)

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (9.00)

Committed (8.79)

Water for Elephants (7.01)

The Time Traveler's Wife (8.36)

Fingersmith (10.88)

Waking Up in the Land of Glitter (11.19)

I'm an English teacher, not a math teacher, so, of course, I lost track of my money...I think I've gone over my limit by about $4...

story of my life ;)

TIME TO HOP AROUND!!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

What is it with this cat and my laptop??

Btw, that's the youngest in the background...thinking Uh-Oh is the funniest cat in the word :)

Fat Tuesday...to Lent

Even congressmen were wearing Mardi Gras beads today :)

At dinner tonight my firstborn and I saw a 60 something year old man with a court jester's hat on.

And, we've eaten our share of King Cakes over the last month...yum!

While I love the history and culture of New Orleans, I wouldn't be there for $1,000,000 tonight...

the final night of the party...the final parade...the final drink...the final night of hedonism...

before Lent begins tomorrow and all the partiers become saints :)

All silliness aside, The Ash Wednesday service is one of my favorites; I am humbled by the symbolism of the cross imprinted on my forehead with ash.  Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of a 40 day period of repentance before Easter Sunday.  I don't usually "give up" something for Lent...but I do try to be more mindful of the reasons I believe what I do and try to live my life in the way that I think God wants me to.

Does that mean I'm going to always do the right thing?

Absolutely not.

Am I going to make mistakes?

You bet.

Am I forgiven?

No doubt.

:)

That's the most beautiful part.

It's the little things...

I'm back on the road again...this time with my oldest who's serving as a page for one of our local congressmen this week while Congress is in session.  Coincidentally, I have some work to to with the State Dept. of Education this week so it worked out for me to stay with my oldest in a hotel near the capitol building.  My youngest tends to get antsy when I'm away too long so I let her ride along with us for the first night. 

I'm sitting here tonight thinking about the small things she's noticed today:

The ride

How many different roads go in so many different directions

Time with her big sister and me

Walking into the hotel

Checking out the cool surroundings

Sitting in the lounge area while I checked us in

Pushing the elevator buttons

Using the card key

Giving the valet our ticket and/or keys depending on whether we are coming or going

Looking up at the capitol building and asking "How long ago was this castle built, Mommy?"

Makes me smile...

And makes me remember that life is worth slowing down a little and looking around

Honor the little things.

And the little ones.

:)

Sunday Salon

I feel like this week I'm finally "getting my groove back" so to speak...with reading and blogging...even though I'm not following my schedule perfectly, I'm gonna forgive myself for that and keep forging ahead.  I'm all about some forgiveness :)

Book Clubs

I'm caught up with my Classics Book Club selection The Good Earth and looking forward to our final discussion starting tomorrow...I'll probably stew on it a little more and get the review up sometime this week while it's fresh in my mind.  I did finally admit to myself that I am officially behind on the Year  of Feminist classics reading schedule, but that doesn't make me a bad feminist.  So, I put Vindication of the Rights of Women aside, skipped over the next couple of selections that I completely missed and gave myself permisson to start Ibsen's A Doll's House.  Feels good to be back on track ;)

Reviews

I completed two reviews this past week...Little Men and March and am working diligently on finishing up my review of the audio version of Pat Conroy's South of Broad...whew! what  a whopper that one was!!  My firstborn and I will be on the road this week everyday so we've got to find another audiobook that we'll both enjoy as we go back and forth to our state capitol this week. Oy.  My behind hurts already. 

ReadAlongs

Speaking of whoppers...I'm also working on my 1st post for War and Peace for the 365 chapters in 365 days challenge over at A Room of One's Own...ahem, of course, I have to finish Chapters 1-59 first...ahem...but see, this is exactly why I love ReadAlongs!  They keep me on track!...and I need all the help I can get ;)

I love ReadAlongs so much that when I stumbled onto two new ones while blog reading this week, I decided to plunge right in :):)  Both are over at Estella's Revenge...on Monday, March 14 we're discussing The United States of Arugula and on Monday, March 28 Affinity.  I can't wait!!

YA Challenge

I'm stumbling around a little on my YA selections...I still have Hunger Games on my nightstand and my middle child has started Sea so I want to start it as well...she has it on her Nook and I have the hard copy she received for Christmas.  There are so many good titles out right now that it's hard to know where to start!

Okra Picks Challenge

The Okra Picks challenge is coming to an end this month so I do have to get busy with finishing that up...I'll be reading Pat Conroy's memoir My Reading Life as well as Crooked Letter Crooked Letter and making a final decision on how I feel about Christy Jordan's Southern Plate.  If I go with my gut, Southern Plate will be my first negative review...why do I feel so bad about that??  I think I'll use a "What I Liked" and "What Didn't Work for Me" format.  I'm still a little nervous though...the Southerner in me doesn't want to hurt anybody's feelings :/

E-Reading

Yay!! Unexpectedly I got my work Ipad back with permission to wipe it clean and make it all mine :):):)  The youngest and I downloaded some games...Mr. Rogers, Electric Company...listened to some great songs about hard and soft letter C as well as a jammin' tune about that sneaky silent E.   I synced my Ipad with my Kindle and my Blackberry...and my laptop...and am working on syncing it with my middle child's Nook :) 

All's right with the techno world... today anyway :)

ARC Change of Heart

After I'd been blogging almost a year I accepted my first few books for review.  After about four books arrived during the span of a one week I quickly became overwhelmed and stopped accepting ARC's.  I didn't feel like it was fair to the authors and especially not fair to me.  My TBR shelves are bulging at the seams...I have plenty to read and review without accepting anything from outside.  After being contacted by the lovely author Rosy Thornton to read and review her book The Tapestry of Love (which was already on my amazon wishlist), I decided to give ARC's another go...

But....

only on one condition.

I will accept, finish and review one ARC before I accept another.  I think that will work for me and it will keep me from accepting books and letting them sit on my TBR shelf for ages before they ever get read much less reviewed.

Have a great week everybody!!