Thursday, January 26, 2017

Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts

Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts is a weekly blogging event hosted by Bookishly Boisterous. It allows book bloggers (and non-book bloggers) to write about pretty much anything, bookish or otherwise (i.e. share exciting plans for the weekend, rants on things encountered during the week. ************************************************************************************** 

Lucky Boy by [Sekaran, Shanthi]

1) This book sounds so, so good...especially with my love for Mexico, I cannot wait to read it. I may even have to pay the ridiculous price of $13.99 for the e-book.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry: A Novel by [Backman, Fredrik] Britt-Marie Was Here: A Novel by [Backman, Fredrik] A Man Called Ove: A Novel by [Backman, Fredrik]
2) I have also jumped on the  Fredrik Backman bandwagon and cannot wait to read all 3 of his "hot" books. It's my turn to pick the book for the book club that I am in, so I think I will choose "A Man Called Ove"...I've heard so many great things about it and I really want to see the movie, so I need to hurry and read it!

Chocolate kiss cookie recipe from @bakedbyrachel

3) Planning to make these beautiful & scrumptious looking cookies THIS weekend!!

4) I'm taking Friday off this week and super crazy excited as I will live my DREAM "stay at home mom" life for the day. I'm working at the school Book Swap (!!!) in the morning, attending an Orange Theory class at lunchtime and then picking up E in the pick up line....maybe even IN my workout clothes...you know, like all the SAHMommies do. LOL! Actually, I hope to be cleaned up!

5) Add to #4 that there has been a bit of drama & turmoil at work this week so I am rather happy that I'll be off on Friday!

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6) I'm still loving THIS IS US!! Are you watching? You should!

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts

Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts is a weekly blogging event hosted by Bookishly Boisterous. It allows book bloggers (and non-book bloggers) to write about pretty much anything, bookish or otherwise (i.e. share exciting plans for the weekend, rants on things encountered during the week. ************************************************************************************** 

1) I had soooo much fun last weekend scrapbooking with my mom. It always goes by too fast. I did get a lot accomplished, but of course, I'm still way behind. *sigh* I remain super motivated however and hope to make some more progress this weekend. 

2) I feel so tech-savvy with this comment, but maybe all of you already know about it...either way, don't tell me so that I can enjoy the feeling a little longer -lol- anyway, I was listening to a BookRiot Podcast the other day and they mentioned www.libraryextension.com for Google Chrome...ok this is so cool...if you install it to your Google Chrome, when you surf Amazon for books, it will tell you if the book (regular, ebook or audio) is currently available at your local library! Oh my the awesomeness! No more separate searching. There is also a button to place a hold on it at your library which takes you directly to the library site. Love this!!

3) Still loving Orange Theory, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that every single part of my body hurts. Wow, it's pathetic that even with all the running I did last year, I am in terrible shape. 

4) It's been unusually warm here so far in January. We have been in the 60s for the past week or so and will continue for about another week. Strange. Usually we get our snow in late January/early February and a few days off of school. So far, there has only been one "snow day" and it was because the back roads hadn't thawed yet. I sure did love how quickly they close the schools around here when I worked in them...now it's a whole other ballgame...but I can work from home so I'm planning on that.

5) All I want to do is bake. And eat my baked goods. But I gained weight over Christmas and cannot afford for the scale to keep going up. 

6) It's gonna be a short post this week people, I've got nothing else.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts

Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts is a weekly blogging event hosted by Bookishly Boisterous. It allows book bloggers (and non-book bloggers) to write about pretty much anything, bookish or otherwise (i.e. share exciting plans for the weekend, rants on things encountered during the week. ************************************************************************************** 
1) I knew it had been a while since I blogged, but I didn't realize it was almost 6 weeks ago....but then again, it was a busy six weeks.
Image result for texas images 2) We had a great trip to Texas for Christmas, saw some new places, relaxed somewhat, played more board games than I care to admit and definitely got some reading done...more in the car, than anywhere though.

3) Looking super forward to this weekend...it's girls weekend for me and my mom. We go to a scrapbooking retreat every year, it's local (downtown) and this is our 3rd year. I really need this to happen 3x a year, but I'll take what I can get. *sigh*  I am leaving work at 1:30pm on Friday and we check in at 3pm. Cannot. Wait.

4) Probably the biggest change in my life this year (already!) has been that I pulled the trigger on quitting the YMCA. It's been a thought floating around in my head since shortly after starting my new job, because I just haven't been able to get there as much. I have only been consistent with Thursday night Yoga and it's a fairly low key yoga class, so not a whole lot of calories burning there. The other factor is their child care. Ethan is 8yo and they recently rented out the (too small) room they used to use, to generate more funds (wrong decision IMO) and put the older kids (6-10yo) in an even smaller room where they SIT while parents work out. SIT. At the YMCA. Does that make a lick of sense to you? No, me neither. He started taking his iPad because there is NOTHING to do besides play the semi-broken Wii unit. Thanks, but no thanks. So the straw that broke the camel's back is that a mom showed up to the yoga class last week who has a son who does not get along with E. Long story, but there is some history there. I know this kid makes poor choices and is a turd (putting it lightly). I have never seen them at the YMCA before and of course E was stuck with this kid in the child care that night and had a complaint about the kid's behavior when I picked him up....so IMO that was the "sign" that it was time to go. And I quit!

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5)Now the best news...I joined Orange Theory!!!!! I had been wanting to do this for quite a while but with not having the child care, I just didn't know how it would work out. Since getting there during the week is next to impossible, I will do my classes on Saturday/Sunday...and maybe even a Friday night class once in a while. The Grand Opening is January 20 and so for those of us who have already signed up, we can go for FREE until Jan 19....so I woke up crazy early (4:30am) on Monday to go to the 5am class since Oscar hadn't left for work yet. I'm not a morning person, but was super excited to go to the class and I really enjoyed it. Next class: Saturday morning 8am -  a nice break to sitting all day and scrapbooking...at least I won't feel guilty for not getting much movement the rest of the day.

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6) Last night I made a stop at Barnes & Noble and it was a definitely high point to my week. I asked one of the booksellers to help me find a book for Ethan, and our conversation ended up with about 8 book recommendations for me and finding out that her and I have pretty similar book interests. It was an amazing conversation and instead of spending my $5 gift card on Ethan, I went home, loaded it to the BN website and bought The Sun is Also a Star which I have been dying to read but also too cheap to spend the $10.99...so I saved $5 off that...which totally justifies it, right? Right! My only regret, not getting her last name so we could connect on Goodreads.com!! She even asked me if I knew about Goodreads...oh yes, definitely, yes. 

7) On January 2, my husband was super motivated about replacing the floor in our house, starting with my home office carpet getting torn out, which is absolutely a mess. Today is the 12th and I haven't heard him talk about it for at least 7 days. *sigh*

8) Like many people I am sure, I put on a few pounds over the holidays and so I am working hard to get them off as quickly as possible. I was going to take a rest from the treadmill last night but when I got home I only had 6k steps, which is totally unacceptable (for us Fitbit junkies)...and so on the treadmill I went. And I pushed hard, doing running intervals like I did at Orange Theory. This morning, my knee is super unhappy. Like, walking hurts unhappy. Ouch.
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9) I had planned to start reading Hamilton on January 1...but clearly I have not. I really want to but cannot seem to pull the trigger for 2 reasons: (1) the e-book is $12.99 and (2) it's 700+ pages. Oof!

10) The most exciting moment of my weekday mornings is checking my Amazon e-book wishlist to see if there are any price drops. #truth