Weekend Roundup

So it's been a fairly uneventful weekend for us. Saturday we worked on our backyard some, it was really looking bad. It's a huge backyard, more like a field really and I was sick of looking at it. We mowed down what used to be our garden and then had our oldest mow the backyard. My honey used the weed eater around the fence which was almost too much for his back and cooked dinner. I was the one that mowed down the garden area and I also clean off the deck and our deck furniture. I also put soil in some planters we bought and planted, a beefsteak tomato, cherry tomato, jalapeno and bell pepper plants in those. I still have to buy some strawberry for the other planter I have yet to use.

Sunday I went on my weekly walk with friends at a local park It was a very nice walk and it's a beautiful sunny day which made it nicer. The company was good as usual. That combination makes for a good walk indeed.

My son dad called and is looking to get him this summer. It's our usual agreement, only he's 16 now and had friends/Girlfriend he doesn't want to leave and is not the least bit happy with us right now. I've told him we'll cut the summer in half but he's still not happy. I'm thinking this will be the last summer and by next year he'll almost be 18 and he'll refuse to go. I'll feel bad for his dad then. I would hate not too see my kid. Part of me feels really bad for my son too. I remember I stopped going to see my dad when I was 14. I just wouldn't go and he lived an hour away. My son's dad lives 8 hours away so it's even harder for him to just see him whenever he wants. I just don't know how it's gonna turn out this time around.

Anyhow that's about all that happened this weekend. Next weekend we are planning on camping again and I can't wait. I swear camping has become my happy place. The scary thing it I'm becoming my mother *shiver*.

Unread

In the perfect follow-up to last week’s question, as suggested by C in DC:

Is there a book that you wish you could “unread”? One that you disliked so thoroughly you wish you could just forget that you ever read it?

That's a difficult question for me. I'm naturally very choosy about what I read. Often times, if I'm not sure on a book, I will research around, until I am. I will say there have been a few along the way that slipped through, that I didn't care for or just didn't understand. In reality every book I read is a journey of sorts for me, and for the most part it's a journey I enjoy.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I've just started Some Girls Bite by Chloe Neill. Here's my teaser:

"You think I'm, what, number two? That I was supposed to be the second victim?"

Page 23

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Printed Page. If you’re eager to tell the rest of the book blogging world about the wonderful books you’ve received this week, click over and share your link.

This is my first week posting for Mailbox Monday. I only received or bought one book last week. Some weeks are really busy for me but here lately I've been cutting down until I start making a dent in my to be read pile.

This week I received:

Some Girls Bite by Chloe Neill. I received this as very generous gesture from the author herself. I will be doing a short review once I get it finished. Might be a little while tho, my reading times have shorten up a bit here recently. I'm a bit busier in the summer months.

Weekend Roundup

We took off Saturday for a 3 day camping trip for the holiday weekend. We had a fantastic time. It was beautiful and sunny the entire weekend, which for Oregon is a rare event, especially for a holiday weekend.

We had some great time with friends Saturday night and got our drink on. A good time was had by all.

Sunday we attended our first fish fry at our campground. That was a lot of fun also. I don't eat fish but I tried some and one of them was really good. Only problem I had was most folks were pretty toasty and no one was actually sure of what kind of fish it was. So for the first time, I found fish that I liked and yet have no clue what it was. Outside of fried fish there was a ton of food and campers alike. I think they do this at the beginning and end of the camping season. So I'm looking forward to the next one we are invited too.

After the fish fry we all walked up to the river so a couple of our friends could get crazy and go tubing in the freezing ass water. Once they got down there, neither wanted to really do it, but neither would back down, so off they went. We followed along the banks and they ended up going a pretty good distance before getting out. It was crazy, but they had a lot of fun. Was good times!

Becca really likes it up there. She can take off and play at the playground, or basketball courts, or the pool room with various pool tables and etc. She has a blast. Andy mostly hangs out with us, he doesn't tend to go off on his own too much.

We got up bright and early to come home today so we could wash up and clean clothes etc before our work week starts back up tomorrow. I'm thinking we'll be going up there again in a couple weekends from now. Camp is easily becoming my home away from home and once I leave, I can't wait to get back there. Course we left stuff up there, it's a good thing our friends were still there, they said they'd stop in and grab the bag we left behind thank goodness or we would have been driving back up there this afternoon.

Booking Through Thursday: A Second First Time

What book would you love to be able to read again for the first time?

There are a couple for me. One of them is Savages by Shirley Conran. I've read this book several times over the years and it never gets old for me. It would be awesome to go back and have the chance to read it for the first time.

The second on is a book I just finished a month or so ago. The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. Everything about this book, the characters, the story, blew me away. I would love to have the opportunity to reread it as if it were new to me.

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My current read is Swollen by Melissa Lion.

"When I woke it was dark. I found Dad downstairs at the table reading a days-old newspaper and Ruth cleaning the kitchen counters." Page 60

Well my little bird passed on tonight. I guess since we weren't here, we won't ever really know why. We're guessing Fred and Bella got in a tussle and Bella won. Really sucks I loved my Fred. She was the friendliest of the two parakeets we have.

Now we need to decide if Bella will stay a solitary one or if we should get another bird for company. I'm just not sure how I feel about that.

Weekend Roundup

Well this has been a busy eventful weekend to say the least.

On Friday as my honey was going to work, some teenager rear ended him and pretty much upset the entire evening. He had to miss work, I dealt with insurance people, trip to the doctors, trip to Walgreen's to get prescriptions. He's mostly okay. His back is bothering him. We're crossing our fingers and hoping it's only minor and will be okay in a few days. Tomorrow we gotta drive it to an auto body shop to get looked at and an estimate done. The insurance people said they'd be out to inspect by Thursday of this upcoming week. Which of course is right before we go camping for Memorial Day weekend.

I also let my youngest get her hair chopped off on Friday. We got about 7 inches cut and it now sits about an inch above her shoulders. She is very excited and happy about it. It actually looks a lot cuter than I thought it would and I told her she could streak some bright color temporary dye in a couple spot just for fun. Man is she excited about that!

Saturday we took our tent trailer to our camp spot. I have never pulled anything so it was a nerve wracking day for me. We had to borrow my mom's vehicle to tow it up there since our truck doesn't have a hitch yet and is waiting to be inspected on Monday by an auto body shop. The tarp our friend so graciously fixed the last time was down yet again. We did get what we wanted, where we wanted it with only a few minor adjustments. We got to get some concrete blocks up there next weekend for our canopy covering out tent trailer. All in all yesterday wasn't too bad. We spent the night and came home first thing this morning since my honey had to work.

Now on to today's lovely events. We got home and one of our birds was on the cage floor not moving but still breathing. The birds either fought and Fred got hurt bad or he's sick. Either way not much we can do for her. We moved her to a little cage by herself and now it's just a waiting game. We're both pretty sure she will die but she's stubborn so who knows.

Went on my usual Sunday walk but it just wasn't as enjoyable and normal since I'm worried about Fred. Since my honey has my car today, Andy and I walked up to the store to get some stuff that was on sale today.

Now I'm just trying to relax, catch up on stuff I missed the last couple days, and do laundry. I think at some point I should eat too. I'm not sure I have eaten today, just snacked on a few cookies earlier. Hmm think I will go get something to eat...

Booking Through Thursday: Book Gluttony

Mariel suggested this week’s question

Book Gluttony! Are your eyes bigger than your book belly? Do you have a habit of buying up books far quicker than you could possibly read them? Have you had to curb your book buying habits until you can catch up with yourself? Or are you a controlled buyer, only purchasing books when you have run out of things to read?

Just Call me a book glutton! I am totally addicted to buying books. Don't get me near a bookstore or you could lose me for hours. Only once in the last few months did I go into a bookstore and come out of it empty handed. 99.9% of the time if I wander into one, I will come out with at least one if not more, books in my hand. I tend to stop by a bookstore once a week. Especially if I've had a particularly bad or stressful day. The smell of books calms me I swear. I have a TBR pile probably getting close to 40ish books. Granted I always have a book I am reading and one I am listening too. So it's not like I buy and never read. I do read but I never have an empty TBR pile.

Being a book glutton isn't always a bad thing. My husband reads/listens to books all the time. My son, who has to read for English at school, has discovered a love of reading. It's no longer a chore to get him to read, he now reads for his log willingly and sometimes he reads even when he doesn't have too. My youngest is an advanced reader but just hasn't been bitten by the reading bug just yet. Once you get her going, she can finish a book in no time. It's the getting her going that is a chore.

Weekend Roundup

Wow talk about a busy weekend.

On Saturday we had to go up to Beaverton to have a family BBQ for Mother's Day. A day early since my honey works today. His brother and family were down from northern Washington. A pretty good, enjoyable afternoon. We got real lucky too, his mom mentioned she needed a dump trip soon. I asked her what she needed dumped and she said she had an old propane BBQ that she hadn't used in 2 years with the tank. I was like heck ya, we need one of those for camp. She saved us over $100, and all we got to do it clean it up. That is my honey's project on his day off this week. I want to be able to get it up to camp this weekend.

Our friends went up to camp this past Saturday and being the awesome people they are, they fixed our tarp and put up better rope. I was so pleasantly surprised and thankful they did that. Took a bit of weight off my shoulders for next weekend.

We were without kids on Saturday so my honey and I had a date night to the movies. We saw Wolverine. I thought it was good. Of course I don't know any of the storyline really so I have no idea if it followed the storyline at all. We then went to a friends house for an hour or so to chat it up by the fire pit before calling it a night.

Sunday I got up and picked up one child from his sleepover and then came home to get ready to go on our weekly walk with friends. My honey called and said hey I got a few hours off, I'll meet you there. A rare treat. So our little group headed out for a mild 2 mile or so walk through the park along the river. Mark had some time so we all then went out for a quick bite before going our separate ways.

I came home and mowed the front lawn and have been cleaning gunk off the tent trailer all afternoon. I finally had time to journal and blog and start to do a Mothers Day relax time lol. I think the rest of the evening I am just gonna hang out and clean off my DVR and wait for my children to make my breakfast for dinner.

Thursday's Thoughts

I finished American Gods this morning. An amazing book to read. I don't think there is a book that Neil Gaiman has written that I would not like. The man is freaking brilliant author.

So today I went to the doctor to see about getting the scar tissue from my cut on my finger removed. He said that we'd trying freezing it off first and it should fall off in 7 - 10 day. If for some reason it doesn't fall off, then I'd have to call him and he would set up a time for me to come in and have it surgically removed. I guess it would be no big deal if it would heal and didn't hurt but it has so far refused to heal. If I have to get it surgically removed they would numb my whole finger and then use a scalpel or something to cut it off my finger. Sounds pretty icky but I will do it if the freezing doesn't work. I'm tired of my finger always hurting and always being afraid of hitting it on something.

My honey has got a head cold and is home sick today. He'd better keep it to himself. I don't want none of his sick cooties.

I Love Wednesdays

They mean my work week is half over and that's always a good thing. It's also a weight lifting day for me, which is my favorite work out class I take. Work has been pretty decent this week so far. *Knocks on Wood*

It is a launch week at my gym. That means new music and new routines. It also means I will sore as shit tomorrow and the next day. I took an hour long nap this afternoon and got up in time to go to the class tonight. It was a good thing too. Naps in the middle of the day always leave me groggy when I get up. Working out always wakes me up and gives me energy. Always a good way to finish my evening.

I really want to finish my book that I am reading. I have less than 100 pages left to read and I'm anxious to finish it up. Mark was giving me so much shit last night because I read all night. He was only joking tho. Instead I'm playing Warhammer with some friends.

I am reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. The book is fantastic! Although there are times where I'm not entirely sure I know what is going on, the story still pulls you into it and keeps you wanting to find out how it ends. In the last nine months, I have become a huge, huge fan of his. I've read/listened to just about everything he's written, outside of Sandman. I especially love his audio book narrations. There is just something about how he reads them that I just love. It's actually how I've read most of his books. I would rather listen to him read me his book than read it myself.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is thinking about checking it out. Hell I would recommend any of his books, including Sandman. If you like audio books, I would recommend them even more.

Rainy Day Monday

Well so much for the hard work put into putting up the tarp. The rain came and brought it down. Guess we need to buy stronger less stretchy rope to get it to stay in place. Our friends took this picture the next day when they went up to finish setting up their camp.

My car is currently at my work, hopefully getting the wheel bearing fixed. I rode the bus today, which I don't really mind doing, but all the walking in the pouring down rain just sucks. I had to go to the store, so I got off the bus about 3/4 of a mile away from home and it's been raining non stop all day. So I walked home in the rain. Then I had to walk a mile to my daughter's school to pick her up and then walk a mile back. This time we had umbrella's but we were still soaked when we got home. I really hope my car gets fixed quickly and really hope it's only the wheel bearing and nothing else. We are about financially wiped out after getting our camp site and the canopy for camp. Our pocket books can't handle much more.

I'm kind of bummed that I won't be able to go to my group power class at the gym tonight. It's my favorite class to go to. I guess all the walking today is exercise enough. Mark is home tomorrow and Wednesday so I can drive the truck to the gym if I have too. I'd better have my car back by then.

I'm making something new tonight. It's Green Giant frozen Pasta & Broccoli in Alfredo sauce. I don't usually make this kind of thing but it looks good. I've got chicken cooking to cut up and add to it. *Hopes it's good*

I think I'm going to go read for a bit while my child is watching the shows I DVR'd for her last night.

I Am Exhausted.

Today we went up to camp and set up the majority of our campsite. We built a 10X20 foot canopy where our tent trailer will live for the next 5 to 6 months. Then we cleared moss from the ground and made a makeshift border of our site with it. There was so damn much of it. My back is killing me from all that we did. We set up our oldest child's tent. Then our friends came up and helped set up the tarp that resides over the fire pit that we moved over from another spot after we got the tarp up. Needless to say we worked our asses off today for a good 6 hours and are home now exhausted.

Now we are waiting patiently for the darn pizza guy to get here with our food. Too tired to cook or do much else tonight. Ah a quick 20 min break while I ate my food.

I found out today I won a copy of Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch from a contest at Savy Verse & Wit. I'm so excited. It is the first time I've won a book giveaway. I can't wait until it gets here so I can read it!

In the past week or two I've found a wonderful world of book review blogs I never knew existed. There are so many books that sound so good to read. I know where to go now if I need something new to read and can't decide what sounds good.

It would be cool if I did reviews but I'm not too terribly good at that kind of thing. I'm just good at reading the books. Trying to describe what I liked or dislike about a book without giving away too much of it, is too hard for me to do. So for now I'll just read the reviews and enter giveaways from all the wonderful sites I've ran across recently.

Well it has been a long day I'm off to watch this weekends PBR even on TV.

New Book Loot

If anyone happens to stumble across this page, you will soon find out that I am totally addicted to books and reading. I have so many books that I own shelved all around my house and some that are boxed up because I have no more room for them. Occasionally I will post about new books I've added to my growing collection.

I had a 40% off coupon for Borders, so I picked up the newly paperback release of Scott Westerfeld's Extras. Then I found a book in the clearance bins that looked good so I grabbed that one too. It's called Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.




Today was the first day of our local library's book sale. They hold it twice a year and I usually find a few books that look good. On top of that I tend to pick up books that are out of my normal reading realm, so I like to think I'm broadening my horizons with these purchases.

Lets see I got: The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve, While I Was Gone by Sue Miller, Swollen by Melissa Lion, Memory Boy by Will Weaver, Three Junes by Julia Glass, Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly, and Dragonflies & Dinosaurs by Kate Austin.






Hmm I wonder if there is an easier way to add pictures and make them line up nicely. They way they have loaded is almost more than I can bear. Yes I can be a tad OCD at times. I like things to look symmetrical and neat. The blogger tool has kinda strewn them about. I find I can cut and paste but not move to where I want after the paste. Hmm oh well, I don't think I'll be doing too many of these posts and by the time I do the next one, I might have learned a thing or two about Blogger.

All in all I got 9 books for around $13.50 today. Not too shabby at all.

In other news, my car decided to make this horrendous grinding noise and after sitting for an hour at Les Schwab for an estimate, I find out my wheel bearing is bad. Lucky me, I work at an auto shop that can fix it for me a hella lot cheaper than anyone else will charge. I guess it could been worse.

Because I spent the afternoon at the tire place, I had to change my appointment with Comcast to come out to Monday. I hope I can keep this one, I had to change it twice already and all I really need them to do is check the line signal to make sure we are getting the strength we need through them. I think we have water built up somewhere that is slowing it down and causing intermittent outages.

So I am thinking positive thoughts for the rest of the weekend.

New Campsite

So last week we were lucky enough to get our own campsite for the season. Unfortunately the campground had it's worst storm in over 50 years this past winter. Our site is pretty messy and had a lot of undergrowth that we need to clear. We went up Wednesday for an hour or so to start clearing the spot where our tent trailer will spend it's time for the next 5 months.

To the left is what we cleared of moss and such on Wednesday. The picture is showing one side of our site. The site is actually really good sized and with two different driveway paths. There are rest rooms right across the road, which is a big plus to have. No hiking halfway across the huge campground to find one. All in all we are very happy with what we got and once we get it cleaned and cleared I'll be even happier.

We are supposed to go up on Saturday to get rid of the moss we cleared and put up the canopy we bought to cover the tent trailer and last but not least, move the fire pit to another location. After that, there is still a ton of clean up that needs to be done but at least we can start camping and clean as we go this season. I'm hoping to take our first camping trip in two weeks. We can't next weekend. We have a family BBQ for Mother's Day on Saturday. But the weekend after that, weather provided, we will try and get up there for the night.

We have friends up there that have their own site also. It's how we got on the waiting list and got our site so fast. They hosted us all last summer and we had the best time. I am looking forward to another season of summer fun with them.