It's Time to Do a Little Reading. What's on Your TBR?

This weekend is going to be a busy one. We have plans for a round of golf, dinner with best friends, and of course celebrations for Father's Day on Sunday. But in any moments of down time, my attention will be occupied by a book. It's a big reading weekend!

Tonight I'm starting the 48 Hour Book Challenge. The challenge is hosted by Mother Reader and is a nice social event with lots of reading. I'm starting mine at midnight and rolling on through 11:59pm Sunday evening.

At the same time, this weekend it's time for a #FlashReadathon. There's no host for this, it's just a free-for-all. Everyone reads and socializes about in on the social media platform(s) of their choice. They've already taken pretty heavily to Twitter this evening. I'm getting antsy to join in.

It's always fun to read with a bunch of my bloggy friends.

While I do love reading and socializing, sometimes I find it hard to find a good book. This is more often because there are too many to choose from than too few. Like most serious readers, I have a TBR. A TBR is a "to be read" list. In my case, the TBR contains about 2,000 books -- including both those housed in my home library that haven't been read and the books I've shelved on my "to read" shelf on Goodreads.

Becauese I'm also a bit of a mood reader, I tend to be pretty indecisive. I like to have a plan and very frequently keep a stack of books in my nightstand. But if the mood doesn't strike right, I'll often find myself frustrated and not feeling into a particular kind of book. That can spell disaster and send me into a book drought where nothing sounds good. It's a bad, bad thing.

To help me combat this problem (and to help keep books from getting buried deep within the TBR and forgotten) I decided to make myself a TBR jar.

I created a spreadsheet with the names of all of the books on my TBR and their authors. I then printed it out. Each strip was then cut and folded.

Originally, the plan was to use a large mason jar since I have several prettily decorated ones leftover from our wedding. But after folding only a small portion of the strips, I soon realized that there was never going to be enough room. I considered only placing in a handful of selected books and replenishing as the supply grew low, but decided that just wasn't what I wanted.

After a search of the house, I found a large container that used to house indoor tulips. It's a 7" diameter cylinder that stands about 15" high. Basically, it's ridiculously large for something like this.

After folding, and folding...and folding. It's now around 3/4 of the way full. And I'm not done. I have a handful of strips left to cut and fold. Man, that's a lot of books!

It's been a pretty long undertaking, but I'm excited for what it will allow me to do. I'm pretty giddy for the moment I reach into it and pull out the first strip. The plan isn't to lock myself into something. The plan is to give me a random idea of what to read. I've made the decision that (at most) I will allow myself to pull out three strips when I'm stuck and don't know what to read next or when I'm just not feeling the book I'm reading. From those three strips will come the choice for my next read. If any of the strips happen to be a book I've already read somewhere along the way, they will be tossed and replaced by another fish in the jar. I'm hoping that will allow me more diversity in my reading, as well as prevent me from getting in reading slumps.

There is a good mixture in there. There are children's books, memoirs, humor, YA fiction, historical fiction, and much more. Most genres are represented. It's a fun new toy, but a daunting reminder of all the books I want to read...a daunting reminder that will no doubt grow as I find more books to add to my TBR, to my Excel sheet, and to my jar. It's amazing how many wonderful works of literary art there are out there for me to get my hot little hands on.

If only I could read them all...

How many books are on your TBR? Do you keep a separate TBR for immediate planned reads or do you lump it all together like I do? Do you have a TBR jar?

I'm ready for my crazy weekend, especially all of this reading. I'm ready to break out the books and to maybe have the moment arrive where a dip in the jar is taken. Hooray for reading! Off I go!

Summary Sunday: Meal Prep Revamp Edition

Well...I'm getting to this a little later than I had planned. It's been a busy weekend.

I spent most of my time getting everything ready for a grocery run. It's the first big one I've done since last August.

This time, I changed things up a bit. It's in the learning curve stage, but I think it's going to work out quite well. Once I run with this procedure one more time to get out the kinks, I'll be sure to share it. It should wind up saving me about six to eight hours of prep and an hour of shopping time. Well worth it.

Today's haul was not bad. I have nearly everything we need for meals until September. I will need to pick up a little bit of produce here and there, along with some dairy. I also need to get some of the meat rounded up. I'm planning on doing that tomorrow. (It's taking a trip to a second store...the prices at my primary store were terrible on anything beef.) As of right now, we're sitting at just under $600. I've saved over $100 in simple couponing. I've changed the way I do that too, so it's less chaotic. We no longer have a newspaper subscription and I get all of my coupons online. I don't use as many coupons, but it's pretty close. And the prep work takes me a lot less time.

Anywho...how about we get this show on the road and see what I accomplished this week?

Summary Sunday: Easter Edition

Happy Easter everyone! We just got back from Easter dinner at my parents' house and I'm nice and stuffed. It was a good day.

I'm moments away from heading back into the crop room to sew, but first let's do a quick wrap up of what happened around here this week!

Summary Sunday: Spring Break Edition

It's Spring Break over here. Well...technically for me, it's Spring Break weekend, minorly interrupted by working Monday, and then it's Spring Break. I'll be spending my time off getting pictures and posts prepped for April's A-to-Z Challenge.

I actually did a little work on it yesterday when I discovered that I once again failed and forgot to take pictures of the majority of projects that I made for Christmas presents last year. Crap. Seriously. When will I learn?!? So...I'll now be working on recreating some of those items to have enough pictures for posts. Sometimes I can really be a dunce.

I'm really wrapped up in playing games on my iPad right now, so let's make this quick. I have farming that needs to be done, settlers who need settled, and a logic puzzle that won't solve itself. Yup...also a nerd.

Let's take a short walk down recent memory lane and see what I accomplished this week.

Posts I Posted: It was actually a fairly productive week of posting. I shared my long overdue "Love" blocks that double as my "Lucky" blocks.

I loved them so much that I made a second reversible set for spring and Easter.

I shared my new family cleaning plan (which is working fairly well, but still needs some tweaking and some getting used to). My mother also enjoyed the fact that Darian did a crap job on the vacuuming earlier this week. She thinks it's karma for the crap I pulled vacuuming (or rather, not vacuuming) as a kid.

And I revealed my plan for the A-to-Z Challenge (which is scaring the pants off of me).

Recipes I Tried: It was a good week in the food department as well. I experimented a few times and came up with some good recipes that will be making a debut on the blog later this year. This week I made Buffalo Chicken Macaroni & Cheese, Stuffed Cheese Ranch Burgers, and some Bacon Ranch Garlic Potatoes. We enjoyed all three of them. Yup...didn't destroy anything. Amazing. The boys liked all three recipes and have already requested that they all get made again. Double amazing.

Books I Read: Things were a little slower in the reading zone. I am currently one book behind my Goodreads goal (at 13 out of 64) and reading Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. I finished up What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty last Sunday night. It was really good and will make it into the bracket for 2014 BOTY. Though I'm not finished with Eleanor & Park yet, I think it will probably make it into the running as well. Oh...and in case you're wondering...yes, there will still be full reviews on the four and five star rated books this year (and maybe some select three stars). May will be one of two months dedicated to reading, so most of them will start debuting then. (That's also when you'll probably start hearing from Darian again. He's been a little quiet on the reading front this year.)

Projects I Worked On/Finished: Well...I finished the blocks and the cleaning plan mentioned above. I've also been doing some serious photo organization and editing for the upcoming April posts. Other than that, not much has happened. This week will get a little crazy though. I have at least two projects that will need to get made during the week to allow for photos for posts within the first week of the A-to-Z Challenge. I also have my awesome nephew turning one in just a couple of weeks, so his birthday present will be in the works. My brother will be turning 31 this week, but he's not getting a project. (Though I did contemplate making him a shirt using last week's Pinterest Pin of the Week.) Sorry, Tyler. You're out of luck until Christmas. (Don't worry...he still gets a gift, just not a homemade project.)

Favorite Pinterest Pin: Hmm...it's a tough one this week. Most of my pins were actually items pinned to my Bucket List this week (in preparation for a project in the fall). But...there were a few things that I found outside of that mess. I actually ended up with two that I can't choose between, so I'm going to go ahead and declare a tie and share both of them.

The first one is a photo only, so there will be some deconstructing and redesigning when I decide to make it myself. It's these cute little felt owls (that I will probably be turning into larger sized pillows).

My second favorite pin was this license plate map done by Angela over at blue i style. She makes some cute stuff. You need to go check her out!

And...that's a wrap! Now I can get back to those very important iPad apps.

Have a great Spring Break! I'll be checking in during the week amidst the crafting and photo editing. (I've made a promise to myself that I will get out of bed every day by 9:30. We'll see how that goes.)

Summary Sunday: I Hate Being Sick Edition

Well...it's been an interesting week. Guess who got sick...again? Ugh. This time it's some sort of sinus disaster. Not my idea of a good time. I've spent the last three days (yes...my ENTIRE three day weekend) in bed. I'm pretty irritated by the fact that none of the craft projects I had planned are getting done - not to mention the fact that I now have to try and figure out how I'm going to rearrange my blog planner. Ah, the downside of trying to be organized.

Now I'm having an OCD breakdown over the fact that the planner is written in pen - PEN, people! - and it won't be accurate. Seriously. You have no idea how much that bothers me. I'd say that I'd go back and redo it and put it in pencil this time, but pencil bothers me too. All the smudgyness? That's not okay. There's just no winning.

So this week's Summary Sunday is going to be pretty short and sweet. Because I accomplished next to nothing. Again. It's getting old. Thank goodness I'm on the mend because there will have to be some SERIOUS crafting this week. That day off I have coming up on Wednesday? Ya...other than the glorious massage I have planned, there will be some sewing and paper crafts happening. Beware the typhoon of crafting that will occur!

Now...let's get down to brass tacks...

Posts I Posted : In terms of quantity, this week sucked. I only posted once. That's a low for 2014 thus far. I'm mildly ashamed. I should have at least tried to dig a draft out to throw on for you guys. But...I will say that the one post I did was a good one.

We celebrated my niece's birthday this week. She turned 3.

How adorable is this little princess?

We went out as a family and she whooped us all at bowling. I'm not kidding. The kiddo scored 117 and beat the other six of us. Okay...so she had a little bit of help in the bowling ramp, but still.

Anyway, I made her birthday present and it ended up being the only post that made it on the blog this week. Thank goodness that project was a cute one. In fact, this may be one of my most favorite projects ever. I give you...Barnyard Hand Puppets.

Seriously, these were so much fun to make. I didn't even have to curse at the sewing machine once. That has to be a record. I'm currently drawing up plans for some additional hand puppet ideas. They'll probably debut sometime in the late fall (Miss M turns 4 in November). We shall see...I may not be able to restrain myself for that long.

Books I Read: This is the category where being sick actually paid off. I am ON TRACK with my Goodreads goal for 2014. Not only am I on track, but the books I finished this week will both be in the running for 2014 Book of the Year. Color me amazed! Let's see how long I can hold on to that one.

I finished two good books this week and I'm currently in the middle of what I think will be another winner. I completed Rapture by Lauren Kate, which was really good except for one flaw that almost made me quit the book altogether. I'm glad I stuck it out because this fourth book in the Fallen series actually ended up being better for me than either the second or third.

Speaking of series books, I also read Where She Went by Gayle Forman. It's the sequel to If I Stay, which I read back in 2012 (and apparently never finished reviewing on Goodreads. Oops.) Well, here's the thing. I really enjoyed If I Stay. But...I liked Where She Went better. That is super rare for me on a series book. I think I just enjoyed Adam's character a lot. Plus, I think being sick put me in more of an emo-type place, so his angst totally worked for me. Whatever the reason, I LOVED this book.

And now...well, now I'm reading Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson. So far, I really like it. I'm expecting that it will be finished quickly. Last night I only gave it up because my Nook was running out of battery power and (thanks to the time change) it was 3 a.m. Ya...a little later than I planned on, but my schedule is all messed up with all of the sleeping I've been doing over the last few days. It's going to make going to work tomorrow at 8 a.m. just that much harder.

Recipes I Tried: It was a week of easy meals at our place. Monday night was burritos. No, not frozen ones...I actually made them. Tuesday night was Darian's favorite, Waikiki Meatballs. I should probably share that recipe at some point. They're delicious and super easy to make. Wednesday...hmm...what did we have Wednesday. Oh! I lied. Wednesday was Waikiki Meatballs. On Tuesday night, Collin made Alphabet Noodles and used up all of the cheese, so I couldn't make the nachos I had originally planned for Wednesday. (We're still obnoxiously out of cheese.) In case you're wondering, Alphabet Noodles are really just a homemade version of Spaghetti-O's. They're not that fancy. But it's nice when he cooks, because it means I don't have to. After that, it's just been leftovers and eating out. We had pizza at Miss A's party and then I've been sick. Collin picked me up some Costco chicken noodle soup yesterday and that was lovely.

Projects I Worked On/Finished: Well other than the aforementioned Barnyard Hand Puppets, nothing got finished. I'm really quite bummed about that. However, I did (with Collin's help) make some progress on the crop room. You can actually see both the table top and the carpet now. It's just this side of a miracle. Now the real work begins. I had Collin drag my paper racks into the garage so I can get them sold and have some money to put towards new cabinetry. I'm in the midst of trying to figure out exactly what I want in there. I think Collin is on to something though, he suggested a table top on the western wall that would eliminate the sewing machine cord from the floor (which would be awesome) and maybe a couch under the window to make it a little cozy. He also suggested a larger TV. I'm totally down for that one. We'll see what happens. I can tell you that the project will not be finished this month as I had originally hoped. The dead heater has seen to that. Stupid money pit of a house.

Favorite Pin of the Week: I'm a little sad to say that not a lot of pinning happened this week. For all the time I spent at home, not much of it was surfing the web. Shocking, I know. And so I have to go a little less classy than I had hoped for my favorite pin this week. Less classy, but hilarious. And I'll apologize beforehand because this pin is just a picture, it doesn't really go to the source. So you just get the link to my actual Pinterest pin for the most awesome coasters ever.

Ya...I laughed out loud at these. I particularly like the top left one.

So hopefully next week goes a little more impressively than this one. It's been a sad start to March. I need to get myself back on track and at least do a few things that apply to the theme.

I also need to get on the ball and start preparing for my April posts. That month is going to be interesting. I'll be starting the A-to-Z Challenge on April 1st, which will end up requiring a post every. single. day. of the month thanks to Summary Sundays.

I'm a little scared.  The good news is that there will be a crafting post on every day that month. The bad news is that I need to get photos organized and remake a couple of projects that are missing photos before April 1st hits. It's going to be a LOT of work. No more time for being sick! Let's get this crafting show on the road!

So much for being short and sweet. Apparently, if you coop me up for too long I can't stop myself from rambling. Maybe I can channel all this new found energy into something productive in the next few hours. Here's hoping!

Summary Sunday: 1st One on Monday in 2014 Edition

Yup. It's Monday...and I'm doing a Summary Sunday. Like Annie likes to say, "no judging". It's been an interesting few days. Let's just say that I should definitely start working towards getting posts done a few days in advance. Hahahaha...I'm laughing just reading myself write that. If you know me at all, then you know I'm totally a procrastinator. Me having stuff done super far in advance just never happens. Like, ever. But it would be nice. I'll keep dreaming.

I am obviously just not one of those "together" blog writers. If you thought that up to this point, you might want to look up the word gullible in the dictionary, because your picture might be there. I'm just about as much of a disorganized mess as they come. Which makes this even more entertaining...March is all about spring...including spring cleaning. This will be a challenge for me. We'll see how it goes.

This Summary Sunday post will be a little bit different. Not only is it a summary of last week, I also need to do a month end wrap up for February. To be completely honest, I have no idea how to do that without making this a total mess. So good luck to you as a reader. Because this might be brutal.

February's theme was love. That actually did go well. Thank goodness. I need something in this post to be positive in the accomplishment category.

There were lots of love themed posts during the month. I talked about how Collin and I met, got engaged, and finally got married...and we spent some of our wedding gift cards by having a delicious brunch at Brick 29.

©Broken H Photography

I congratulated my parents on an impressive 36 years of marriage...and they celebrated with some time together in Hawaii. (I'm jealous.)

I made the first of our new 2014 holiday decorations - which is actually our only Valentine's Day decoration. We then spent our Valentine's Day together as a family, eating sushi and watching the Olympics.

I reminded you to date your significant other all year round...and we went on a family date with my brother, his wife and my adorable niece to see The LEGO Movie. Which, by the way, if you haven't seen it...you need to. It's hilarious and cute and wonderful.

And then I piled on the DIY wedding crafts.

Our wedding canopy...

©Broken H Photography

Glitter Glue Mason Jars...

Wedding Invitations...

and my favorite post of 2014 so far...the origami wedding flowers that took me forever to complete.

Oh...and somewhere in the middle of all this awesomeness came some additional fun at our place...our heaters died. Space heaters and our gas fireplace are now our good friends as we save up for that joy.

And then I got sick. Yup. That was fun. I had to cancel a day of work and felt pukey and had a swimming head for about three days. Not my idea of a good time.

You started out good February...and I really did like you...but you ended on a very sour note. I think I'm okay with saying goodbye to you.

Now...how about last week...

Last week we got surprised by a band concert. We found out Sunday that Darian had a concert on Monday night. That was awesome. Well...the timing wasn't awesome, but the night was. We scrambled to make our schedules work and showed up at 5pm for the Potato Feed. Darian played great and we all had a good potato dinner together. They had a raffle going that night for some baskets full of prizes. Collin's office made a donation that got us a pile of entries and...well...we won. We won a lot. We never win anything. But somehow that night we won like six times. Total craziness. And I got an iPad out of the deal. Sweet.

As for the blog...

We already talked about the posts I posted, so I get to skip that one.

Books I Read: I finished Passion by Lauren Kate, the 3rd book in the Fallen series. I'm holding steady at one book behind schedule on my Goodreads goal and I have my Nook nice and loaded with a good selection of books for the next few months.

Recipes I Tried: We had potatoes on Monday night, does that count? Ya. Right. I was sick. No way I cooked people. (Yes, I should probably rephrase that to make it make some actual sense, but I'm enjoying the fact that it resembles one of those eCards about the need for appropriate punctuation and grammar far too much to fix it.) I made the men cook and we ate some leftovers on the other nights.

Projects I Worked On/Finished: Well...this post is getting even easier since I accomplished a big batch of zero last week. Boom! Laziness is paying off. I spent a lot of time bonding with my bed. We're good friends.

Favorite Pin of the Week: I love these cute little sock owls over at Craft Passion. Seriously...how cute are these? And the tutorial makes them look pretty straight forward to make too.

Wow. Longest review post ever. That only took me two hours. Ok. I'm going back to my evening now. And then I'll be starting on some crafting stuff later this week. Because the blog schedule says I have to. Fine. So be it. Crafting it is.

Summary Sunday: Money Pit Edition

Perhaps you're familiar with this movie...

Source: IMDB

It feels like my life right now. In the 1986 film version, Tom Hanks and Shelley Long play a couple who buy a home that turns out to be a complete lemon. Things begin to fall apart the moment their purchase is final.

In our life, our house has somewhat fallen suit.

In 2009, the upstairs water heater (which was inconveniently built into a closet that prevented full access) decided to explode, sending water down through the walls and ceiling to the first floor. In 2011, the main level water heater died. I was in the shower getting ready for work when I had that revelation.

2013 was a banner year for destruction. At the beginning of last year, the wind knocked over one of our front light pillars. The second followed in August. In May, I turned on a hose in our front lawn to discover that I had left the hose on during the winter, thus freezing the pipe. It repaid me by flooding our basement. That little piece of joy took over six months to repair. In June, one of the air conditioners died.

And then there was this week. Apparently 2014 will not be the year of no home disasters. We are already expecting that we will need a new sprinkler system come spring (ours is some obsolete disaster with no clear cut ability to blow out the lines and prevent freezing and destruction of valves). That was going to be spendy enough. But it will be nothing compared to what decided to befall us this week.

I came home from work on Tuesday night and walked in the door to an odor of something burning. Turns out, it was coming from the vents. We shut off the basement heater and figured we should get someone out to inspect it...surely it needed a servicing. Oh, if we were only so lucky.

As luck would have it, we discovered on Thursday that not only do we need to replace the basement heater, we also need to replace the upstairs one. You know...unless we want to throw money at repairs that will last less than a year or we all want to die of carbon monoxide poisoning or burn down our house. And of course, they are both linked to the air conditioning units...one of which (as I mentioned earlier) died last year. Grand total for repairs? Ugly. 5 digit ugly. Needless to say, that will not be happening right away.

So...we've spent the weekend using a few space heaters to keep things warm and we'll be waiting for what we hope will be a decent tax refund to help us fix at least one of the two units.

Yup. That was my week. Fun times. What else did I do?

Posts I Posted: Most importantly, I wished my parents a happy 36th anniversary...on the correct day.

I shared my technique for getting perfect glitter distribution in mason jars and explained how I designed my own wedding invitations and saved over $200.

Oh...and I revived the post on my date box (and over 160 date ideas) to remind everyone that dating is a year round event, not just for Valentine's Day.

Books I Read: I finished two books this week and now I'm only one book behind on my Goodreads goal. Yay! Slowly catching up. I finished the Divergent series with Allegiant by Veronica Roth and I continued to read the Fallen series by finishing Torment by Lauren Kate and starting Passion.

Recipes I Tried: No new recipes this week, but it was a good week for budget friendly recipes. We dusted off my old recipe for beef stroganoff...one that I hadn't made for quite a while. It was nice to get it back in rotation. I made some super easy goulash, but used a jalapeno chili that gave me terrible heartburn. Collin also pitched in with one of his standbys, a very bachelor friendly meal we call spread.

Projects I Worked On/Finished: I started attacking the crop room clean up this week. It promises to be one heck of an endeavor. I sorted through and boxed up all of the wedding stuff that had been cluttering up a quarter of the room, so I can actually see some carpet again. I think the next step will be emptying everything out of the closet so that I can start reorganizing the shelving in there. I also have a good DIY project in mind. We'll see how it goes.

Favorite Pin of the Week: I only did a smidge of pinning this week. My time was spent on other things apparently. But I still found a couple of fun things. My favorite is simply something that appealed to my sweet tooth. It's a recipe for horchata from Love Bakes Good Cakes. I'm a big fan of the cinnamon sugar rice drink, but I've never had a recipe for it at the house. Now I do. And I intend to use it.

And that's it. Phew. Now onto a new week...let's hope this one is a little less "fun".

Summary Sunday: Cancelled Cable Edition

While everyone else is watching the Superbowl today, we are lounging around the house. Collin is in playing SimCity and I'm surfing the internet and watching Netflix. Why aren't we watching the game? Well...we have no TV at our house. Traditional TV that is. We have cancelled our cable in a bid to save some cash. We decided that we weren't really watching it and throwing $100 a month at something we weren't using just seemed ridiculous. It's just our latest decision to try and tighten the budget at our house. And honestly, it seems to be working out pretty well. We've been cable free for two weeks now without incident. Of course, that's mostly because I'm a huge fan of Netflix. We also have PlayOn and are considering adding Hulu Plus to our lineup. Exchanging the $100 TV bill for a $15 one...not too shabby. Even better? We're not missing out on anything with today's game thanks to three main things:

1. We aren't big on professional football around here. It's just not our speed. We aren't football haters, we actually like college ball quite a bit (as is evidenced by our having season tickets for Boise State for the last two years). We just aren't big on the pompousness and the money grubbing that seems to be the primary fuel for the games. There are good players and there are good games, but it's just not the same. Oh...and for those of you wondering, yes - we will still be rooting for Boise State next year even though Coach Pete has moved up to Washington. And no, we aren't bitter at his move.

2. The power of the interwebs. We typically only watch the Superbowl for the commercials. Yes, we're that family. But this year has let us watch the ads without watching the game. They are all over the internet. I know that some are angry that they were released early, but it works out well for us. Do I think that it will diminish the number of people watching the game and make those spots less valuable in years to come? Yes and no. I think the number of people watching will reduce, but only slightly. Even though a lot of people just watch for the commercials, I still think that there are a lot of them who watch the game as a part of popular culture whether they like football or not. And of course there will always be thousands of die hard fans who watch the game because it's the game. Because of the sheer number of watchers who will continue to watch regardless of commercial leakage on the internet, I think that they will continue to be very coveted spots. Worry not, advertisers.

3. This is really subsection 2 of number two, but social media has kept us in the loop in a way that cable alone could not. We have updates from the news outlets and our friends. We have the banter of Seahawks fans and Broncos fans. It's like one big digital party.

So...that's our Sunday. It's probably different from yours, but I like it just the same.

And how about the rest of my week?

Posts I Posted: This last week, I cleaned up my scrapbook room and have been reveling in the ability to see my desk tops. I had full intentions to do some more cleaning of the house today, but laying around doing nothing has been way more appealing and so, I have succumbed to the laziness. I am enjoying my sloth.

Before I completely crapped out, I put together a list of things we want to attack around the house to get things revamped and redecorated before the year is out. My next step with that is to organize it into a priority list and then start checking things off one by one. It will be nice. There are a couple of projects in the list that I am particularly excited for.

I reviewed the month yesterday for the blog and have jumped forward into the theme for February. I'll have a project up at the end of this week. Good times.

But I still stand by the fact that the best part of my week has been seeing the sun. I love where I live, but January is always interesting for us. We always manage to get an inversion before the winter is up that socks us into a pit of gray. After nearly three weeks, the sky cracked open and the sun came out once again. It was very much a welcome sight.

Books I Read: I'm still two books behind on my Goodreads challenge goal, but I did finish a book this week. I read Daddy's Little Girl by Mary Higgins Clark. It didn't do as well as her books usually do, but it wasn't a dud. I gave it 3.5 stars. Next up, I'm reading Divergent by Veronica Roth. I've been waiting to read this series for quite a while, so I'm excited to get it rolling.

Projects I Worked On/Finished: I haven't finished anything this week, but I've been working on a couple of things.

I'm working on a craft project for Valentine's Day that should be finished by the end of the week.

I'm doing some planning on the remodel for the crop (soon to be sewing) room.

I like this idea for a revamp to my baker's rack:

Source

 And I like the idea of a wall length cubby system for the rest of the organizational space.

Source

*** Now...a short PSA about being a responsible Pinterest pinner. If you follow either one of those links, you'll notice they both send you to Pinterest pins. I don't like that. I am really big on making sure to give credit where credit is due. But...if you click on those pins, you'll also notice that one of the links is broken and the other one takes you to a homepage rather than a post. This irks me. This is what I call irresponsible pinning. I have somewhat perpetuated the problem by repinning things that weren't linked properly the first time, but when I post an original pin I always make sure to pin properly. Please pin responsibly. Give credit where credit is due. I can tell you that the second picture is one from Becky Higgins' personal scrapbook room. I know this because I've watched several of her videos where she is hanging out in this particular room. But I know nothing about the person who came up with the organizational idea for that first photo. That is annoying to me.

So how do you pin responsibly? When you find a pin you like, follow the link to check its authenticity. When you find something you want to pin, make sure you are pinning the original, not a post that is a link to the original. Make sure you pin the specific post, not the blog homepage. And be helpful. If a link is broken or goes to the wrong location, note that in your pin. Help future pinners and help the people whose ideas you are sharing. There you go. PSA over. Continue on. ***

Recipes I Tried: Ya...this week went crazy fast. I'm trying to think back on it and it's all a blur. We didn't do anything fancy for dinners this week. There were a lot of leftovers, Collin cooked a pork chop dinner on family night (Tuesday), and Darian made soup for us on his night (Thursday). We've been working to try and spread the responsibilities and to teach Darian how to do more and more on his own. It's been nice to lighten my load, but it doesn't make for much in new stuff here on the blog.

This Week's Favorite Pin: I did a lot of Valentine's Day project pinning this week, but my favorite pin isn't even a craft one. My favorite is these Boston Cream Pie Crepes from girl. Inspired. How yummy do these look??!?!

Source

I'm excited to try them out.


And...that's it for now. Enjoy the game if you're watching, and if not...enjoy your Sunday night.

How do you celebrate Superbowl Sunday?

2012 BOTY Semifinals

Here's where we left off last time...

Today, it's on to round two. We have our sweet sixteen. Now they get whittled down to eight. It's going to be brutal...

Match up #1: 

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern vs. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling.

Both of these books garnered 5 stars and both are excellent reads. 

The Night Circus is whimsical and fun. I loved it very much and it reminded me somewhat of Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I love the fact that it was able to be mystical without going over the top and seeming silly. It read very fast and I would absolutely read it again. 

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? is a really cute comedic novel. Mindy Kaling tells short stories from her life in a way that just makes you giggle. She's fantastic. She writes with a laid back and semi-sarcastic style that just made me love her. I laughed out loud several times and sped right through it.

This was a pretty tight race. Both books are seriously excellent and are very welcome in my own personal library. But...there has to be a winner. So, just basing it on which book I would grab first to read again, the winner of match #1 is...

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Match up #2:

Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson vs. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

I hate to say it, but this match up was doomed from the start. Both of these books are great, but one is entering this round with a strong disadvantage.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened is a memoir based on Jenny Lawson's ridiculous life. She is hilarious and had me laughing out loud more or less consistently. It was to the point that I was taking photos of excerpts on my phone and texting them to Patti. I couldn't read it in public because I couldn't keep myself composed. I loved it more than I can tell you. Of course, I do have to explain that I may have a small girl crush on Jenny...so that might have worked in her favor.

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt is a really cute southern style novel. It is really fun and light-hearted. The characters are bubbly and wonderful. I really enjoyed the whole thing. It reminded me a lot of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Just fun southern women with some serious sass. 

Like I said, the deck was kind of stacked on this one. It's a tough one to beat. So...the winner of match up #2 is...

Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

Match up #3:

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen vs. City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

I seem to be reading a lot of YA Fiction over the last little while. I just find it entertaining and relaxing. Some of the adult fiction can get so stuffy.

The Sugar Queen was the second of Sarah Addison Allen's books that I read in 2012. I love her style. She is very simple, but with an air of mystery. It's marvelous. She is so fun to read that I wound up reading four of her books last year. Yes...she's that good. The books read very quickly and hook you quite easily.

City of Lost Souls was the third of Cassandra Clare's books in 2012. I also read four of her novels last year. Kind of a crazy coincidence that the two end up pitted against each other. City of Lost Souls is the 5th novel in Clare's The Mortal Instruments series. The books are filled with action and suspense, but they are mellow at the same time. I read her books terribly quickly, only frustrated by the fact that there is still at least one more book to come in the series. Ah, the danger of reading serial books.

This was a really good match up. Either of these books would be a great easy weekend or rainy day read. Once again, a difficult decision to make. There are some really good books in the 2012 BOTY list.  The winner of match #3 is...

City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

Match up #4:

The Shoemaker's Wife by Adriana Trigiani vs. The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen

I'm finding this very hard to do. There are such great books here. In fact, it's kind of making me want to read some of them again. I hope that this year yields such a good group.

The Shoemaker's Wife is just an adorable love story. It stretches decades and continents. It is in the perfect time period for me (turn of the 20th century). I loved the characters. I mean LOVED them. This was one of the books where the characters started to feel like real people. I wanted to know more about them and I was sad when the book ended and I had to leave them.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon was the first Sarah Addison Allen book I read. I'll be honest here and admit that I picked it for the cover. I had never heard of Allen before, nor the titles of any of her books. I enjoyed this book so much that I wound up reading three more of her novels before the year was out. I'm hooked.

I struggled over this one and bounced back and forth on the winner a couple of times. There are versions of the bracket with each as a winner. But ultimately, I had to put my foot down and put one above the other. Winner of match #4...

The Shoemaker's Wife by Adriana Trigiani

Match up #5:

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay vs. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Now we've entered the right side of the bracket. I'm glad we're half way. This is seriously making me uptight. It's so hard to let a good book go in the loss pile. It's a sad state of affairs.

Criminy. These are both crazy good as well. 

Sarah's Key requires a bit of a strong constitution. It is a difficult read (from an emotional standpoint), but a good one. I typically don't seek out WWII era historical fiction as a favorite, but this one was flat out amazing. Dramatic and poignant and just beautifully written.

The Fault in Our Stars was kind of a surprise for me. For some reason, I didn't expect it to be as good as it was. Maybe I was judging it harshly because it's YA fiction. Perhaps because of that I held it to a lower standard. Whatever the case, this one was wonderful. I couldn't put it down. In fact, the first line of my Goodreads review?  READ THIS BOOK. 

The winner of the very emotional match up #5...

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Match up #6:

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda vs. Ape House by Sara Gruen

Okay...seriously...you pretty much just need to read all of the books on this list. Every time I move to the next section of the bracket all I can think is, "oooh...that book was soooo good." It's killing me.

Secret Daughter was a book I read because Erin would NOT shut up about it. She kept telling me to read it and I kept telling her I had a stack of books planned. I finally caved. Holy crap. This book is amazing. I loved it. Like...LOVED it. I took it to work with me to read in down time. (I never take books to work.) I couldn't wait for my lunch hour so I could get a few more pages in. I read until 2 A.M. a couple of times on work nights because I couldn't put it down. It was just fantastic.

I read Ape House simply because it was written by Sara Gruen and I had adored Water for Elephants. It wasn't what I expected and was totally different from Water for Elephants, but it was still great. In fact, I think I liked it better than Water for Elephants. Yup...it was that good.

But...once again Erin comes through with a winner. Match #6 is taken by...

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Match up #7:

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare vs. Eight Keys by Suzanne LaFleur

I've discovered that this is much easier to do on my lunch break, when I don't have a ten-year-old hovering over me asking me to check spelling words and querying as to whether I would like to watch the TV show that I am currently obviously watching or if he can play Skylanders. Oy.

City of Fallen Angels is the 4th book in The Mortal Instruments. Like I stated earlier, this series is awesome. It reminds me of the Twilight series, but with less sparkling and a less whiny heroine. I'm a fan. I am currently not-so-patiently waiting for the 6th book in the series to be released...in 2014. Aaaarrrrgghh!

Eight Keys was recommended/lent by Patti. She won it as a FirstReads win on Goodreads. This book is a really cute read. It would be great for anyone from middle school age to adulthood. It's very well done. I quite enjoyed it.

For the second time in the 2012 BOTY, Cassandra Clare pulls ahead. Pretty impressive. The winner of match up #7 is...

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

Match up #8:

The Secret Lives of Dresses by Erin McKean vs. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

We've made it to the final section of the bracket!! Yay!!!

Both of these books are super cute reads. They're both very girly, but I loved them. 

The Secret Lives of Dresses was fun to read and one of those books that you're sad to have end. It was mildly more ChickLit than I typically like (read: the main character can be a little whiny and occasionally predictable), but I still had a good time reading it. It had a super sweet premise and I just wanted to know more.

Garden Spells is yet another Sarah Addison Allen novel. I'm telling you, this girl can rock it. I just really enjoy her writing. It's like CoverGirl...easy and breezy. Magnificent. I can read her books in one sitting and they've all let me wanting for more.

And the winner of the final match up (#8) is...

Tada!!! And we have eight! I have to tell you...not the easiest decisions to make. I still stand by the fact that any of the books in this bracket are worth the read.

Tomorrow...the final four and the announcement of the 2012 BOTY. Hooray!!

The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve

I've found myself a new hobby. Well...actually, it's more of a co-hobby with Collin. We have discovered the fun of thrift stores. You know, Goodwill, Youth Ranch, DI (Deseret Industries for those of you not familiar with the Mormon version).

We started going to thrift stores on a whim a few months ago. It's now become one of our favorite things to do as part of a date. Collin loves that he can get awesome coffee mugs and bar glasses for $0.25 each and I am totally in love with buying books for under $1. In fact, yesterday I bought a best seller paperback for $0.13! Score!

You've now probably figured out where I'm going with this. I had heard about Anita Shreve before (I have no idea where from), but I am really cheap and hate to buy books unless I know I'm going to like them. Yes, I have a Nook and yes I have a pile of books on it, but there's just something about being able to have the real deal in your hand. Plus, I get a certain satisfaction from filling up the bookshelves in our home library.

I happened upon The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve in pretty dang good condition at one of our very first thrift store shops. I'm now glad that I picked it up. $0.65 well spent. I enjoyed this nice, easy read. Funny enough, it gets some pretty harsh reviews over at Goodreads, where many found the story trite and boring. Whatever. I disagree. To me, it's kind of one of those lazy afternoon reads. You know, the ones where you just sit down and let your mind relax and absorb everything coming at it.

In The Pilot's Wife, Kathryn's husband Jack is killed when the plane he is flying explodes over the coast of Ireland. She is obviously distraught over this development and becomes even more unhinged when news stories begin to paint her husband in an unfavorable light. Many of them insinuate that his death was in fact a suicide that resulted in the deaths of many others. Kathryn refuses to believe this, but after discovering some odd items around the house, she decides to look into the circumstances of his death on her own. What she finds, (dun, dun, dun...) will change everything.

Okay, so let me be up front in saying that this wasn't the absolute best book I've ever read. It is somewhat predictable. But the writing is really good and the character of Kathryn is really well developed. It's a quick read that doesn't require a whole lot of deep attention. In other words, this is totally Chick Lit. Sometimes I just need that. So in the end, I gave The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve 4 out of 5 stars.

East of Denver by Gregory Hill

Holy moly! So...I'm a nice handful of book reviews behind. Amazing how this stuff stacks up when you find other things to occupy your time. (Ahem, Olympics.)

I won East of Denver by Gregory Hill as a Goodreads First Reads book. Have I said how much I love winning those books? It's fun to try new things and get novels from first time authors.

Stacey "Shakespeare" Williams returns home to visit his elderly father, who is suffering from dementia. I kind of knew I was in for an odd ride quite quickly, as the book begins with Stacey driving to the farm with a dead cat in his back seat. I wasn't wrong. Upon arriving, he finds the house a mess, with rotting food out in the kitchen and litter strewn about. He is concerned with trying to understand why his father hasn't been cared for -- he was supposed to be getting help from a local woman named Unabelle. Stacey doesn't have to wait long to find out...after a short while he finds Unabelle behind a locked bathroom door, dead for an unknown amount of time. You ask...how didn't he know the moment he walked into the house? The smell...how did he not have an idea? Ah...but Stacy is an anosic--he is unable to smell. How often do you come across something like that? And how convenient is it in this particular scenario?

Stacey resigns himself to stay with his father, as he has nothing waiting for him back at home in Denver. He is attempting to revive some of the farm, but soon realizes that something has gone rather wrong. It seems that his father has been cheated out of money and equipment, including an airplane, by a local crooked banker. At this point, you'd think a lawyer would be contacted and the wrongs would be somewhat righted, but this book does not follow a normal pattern in any way. Instead, Stacey decides to take on the problem by himself.

While investigating what the true story of events has been, Stacey rekindles relationships with former high school classmates, Carissa (employed as a teller at the bank), Vaughn (his best friend, now a paraplegic living in his mother's basement), and D.J (the local drug dealer). The more he learns about the deception that threatens to cost his father the family farm, the angrier he becomes. He schemes with his father and the local misfits to even up the score.

The book is a very dark comedy, littered with rather bland attempts at humor. To be perfectly honest, it just wasn't my style. The characters are hard to believe as a whole. It all just seems too over the top with oddness. I think the plot had promise and there could have been some wonderful things to come out of it, but it seems as if the author just tries too hard. Gregory Hill does well with description and clearly paints a picture of every moment. But at the same time, there comes across a certain crudeness...a lack of refinement that just makes everything awkward.

I mentioned earlier how much I enjoy the Goodreads First Reads program. It's really been a new and fun experience for me. I have to say though, it has been a challenging task as well. I tend to feel more obligated to the authors of these books. They have put their babies in my hands in the hopes that I will praise their hard work and help them find a larger readership. And sometimes, this happens. Some of these books are marvelous and I can't get enough of them. But...I just can't say that of them all. And I have to stay true to my feelings as a reader. I have to be honest in my reviews...otherwise I'm really just wasting my time and the time of my readers.

This book unfortunately did not live up to my expectations. It was quirky and uncomfortable for me. I just didn't enjoy this book. Sadly, I gave East of Denver only two out of five stars.

Now...to end with a little bit of brightness. It's been a while since I've updated the 2012 bracket. So...here it is. Updated in all it's glory.