Halloween is upon us and maybe you need a scary movie recommendation.  Let’s see if you can identify these movies…

Leave your guesses in a comment.  Good luck!

No Googling or looking at other commenter answers.  Yes, we’re going by the honor system 🙂  Play every week or just one time, you are always welcome 🙂  It only takes once to be eligible for a prize. 

1. The Shining
2. Night of the Living Dead
3. Cujo
4. Silence of the Lambs
5. Halloween
6. The Exorcist
7. Texas Chainsaw Massacre
8. The Omen
9. 28 Days Later
10. The Blair Witch Project

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week.Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

It’s been a month? since I posted he books that came into my house. Ugh! Since Gage started school it seems I have had less time for blogging but I’m hoping that turns around.  October, our month of celebrations, is winding down and I’m thankful.  I’m also thankful for all of these goodies that arrived.

Texas Tango by Cynthia D’Alba and the cowboy wind chime arrived from the author after a win at Writerpsace.com

Dr. Caroline Graham is happy with her nomadic lifestyle fulfilling short-term medical contracts. No emotional commitments, no disappointments. She’s always the one to walk away, never the one left behind.

Travis Montgomery has one dream left—to build the ranch he and his wife planned before he lost her to cancer. There’s just one thing standing between him and the last bit of acreage he needs—a last living heir who has one traveling foot out the door…and an unusual request that challenges his determination to never again place his heart at risk.
Warning: This book contains a tortured widower who doesn’t want a wife and an independent doctor who doesn’t want a husband. Hot stuff between the sheets and failed efforts to avoid emotional involvements.  

You by Caroline Kepnes (audio) arrived from the sweet and generous Kathy 🙂

When a beautiful, aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card.

There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson arrived from the lovely and generous Care 🙂

Winesburg, Ohio (1919) is Sherwood Anderson’s masterpiece, a cycle of short stories concerning life in a small town at the end of the nineteenth century. At the center is George Willard, a young reporter who becomes the confidant of the town’s solitary figures. Anderson’s stories influenced countless American writers including Hemingway, Faulkner, Updike, Oates and Carver. This new edition corrects errors made in earlier editions and takes into account major criticism and textual scholarship of the last several decades.

Monsterland by Michael Phillip Cash arrived from Red Feather Productions

Welcome to Monsterland – the scariest place on Earth. All guests can interact with real vampires in Vampire Village, be chased by an actual werewolf on the River Run, and walk among the dead in Zombieville.
Wyatt Baldwin, a high school student and life-long movie buff is staring bleakly at a future of flipping burgers. Due to a fortuitous circumstance, Wyatt and his friends are invited to the star-studded opening of Monsterland. In a theme park full of real vampires, werewolves and zombies, what could possibly go wrong?

The Hollow Ground by Natalie S Harnett was a birthday gift from my mom.

The underground mine fires ravaging Pennsylvania coal country have forced Brigid Howley and her family to seek refuge with her estranged grandparents, the formidable Gram and the Black Lung stricken Gramp. Tragedy is no stranger to the Howleys, a proud Irish-American clan who takes strange pleasure in the “curse” laid upon them generations earlier by a priest who ran afoul of the Molly Maguires. The weight of this legacy rests heavily on a new generation, when Brigid, already struggling to keep her family together, makes a grisly discovery in a long-abandoned bootleg mine shaft. In the aftermath, decades’ old secrets threaten to prove just as dangerous to the Howleys as the burning, hollow ground beneath their feet. Inspired by real-life events in now-infamous Centralia and the equally devastated town of Carbondale, The Hollow Ground is an extraordinary debut with an atmospheric, voice-driven narrative and an indelible sense of place.

Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty by Diane Keaton came from my mom too.

Diane Keaton has spent a lifetime coloring outside the lines of the conventional notion of beauty. In Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty, she shares the wisdom she’s accumulated through the years as a mother, daughter, actress, artist, and international style icon. This is a book only Diane Keaton could write—a smart and funny chronicle of the ups and downs of living and working in a world obsessed with beauty.
 
In her one-of-a-kind voice, Keaton offers up a message of empowerment for anyone who’s ever dreamed of kicking back against the “should”s and “supposed to”s that undermine our pursuit of beauty in all its forms. From a mortifying encounter with a makeup artist who tells her she needs to get her eyes fixed to an awkward excursion to Victoria’s Secret with her teenage daughter, Keaton shares funny and not-so-funny moments from her life in and out of the public eye. 

Meet Razzi and Sammi These two siblings came home yesterday, not even 3 months old yet or 3 pounds.  I’ve already had to take Razzi off my lap and the keyboard twice just as I’ve been typing!  In honor of the newest members of our household We’re going to have a cat quiz. Don’t feel bad if you only remember a few since I’m not giving you options this week.

Leave your guesses in a comment.  Good luck!

No Googling or looking at other commenter answers.  Yes, we’re going by the honor system 🙂  Play every week or just one time, you are always welcome 🙂  It only takes once to be eligible for a prize. 

1. I belonged to Hermione Granger.  Crookshanks
2. I love lasagna and hate Mondays.   Garfield
3. I lived with Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  Cat
4. You might remember my sexy self from the Shrek movies, but I also had movies of my own.   Puss in Boots
5. I have a love-hate relationship with that mouse Jerry.   Tom
6. I caused some trouble in the movie Meet the Parents.  Jinx
7. I was the cat in The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe.   Pluto
8. Dr. Suess gave me a really cool striped hat.   Cat in the Hat
9. I was killed by a truck in Pet Sematary, for a while.   Church
10. My grin is famous!   Cheshire

Another birthday and a check-in with the bucket list I made when I was 40.  I did visit a new state and have managed to raise a pretty cool almost 5 year old and am getting ready to celebrate another year of marriage.  But I really need to pick something to mark off my list by next year!

1. Write and publish a novel.

2. Open my own bookstore.

3. Spend a night in an English castle.

4. Visit Ireland.

5. Meet a US president.

6. Learn to start a fire without matches. (this probably comes from watching too many seasons of Survivor)

7. Learn to play the piano.

8. Raise a happy and successful son.

9. Celebrate my 50th anniversary. (almost 17 in)

10. Make exercise a daily priority.

11. Get back to my wedding weight, just once.

12. Try a vegetarian diet for a year.

13. Drive across the country.

14. Visit all 50 states. I got to mark off Indiana this year when I spent time at the University of Notre Dame, giving me 23.

15. Stay in an overnight car on a train trip.

16. Fly first class.

17. Take Gage to Italy.

18. Ride a boat down the Mississippi River.

19. Trace ancestry to when all branches entered the US.  (we’ve been here a long time so this will take many more years of research)

20. Tour Napa Valley.

21. Live somewhere warm year round. (As a midwestern girl I love my seasons but I’d like to see if I’m missing anything :))

22. Volunteer on a political campaign.

23. Sit on a jury.

24. Buy only American for 1 year.

25. Have a library with wall-to-wall built-in bookcases.

26. Write and mail 1000 letters. These can include cards if I include a personal note.

27. Be an extra in a movie.

28. Watch a play from backstage.

29. Go skiing.

30. Attend a murder mystery dinner. 9/2013

31. Volunteer weekly.

32. Read all the books I own.  (I’d like to have no TBR pile just once.  I can give away books to reach this goal)

33. Start my own book club.

34. See all 4 tennis majors. (2 down, Wimbledon & Australian Open to go) A few throwback pics for fun.

US Open 2005

French Open 2010

35. Give blood.

36. Sleep under the stars.

37. Have a hammock.

38. Fire a gun.

39. Own a B&B.

40. Do a random act of kindness every day.

When I first started doing quizzes in 2009 I focused on classics so for this first quiz of the new round of quizzes (please join in!) I thought I’d go back to the Classics.  I’ll be giving you a one sentence review (I’m using the Webster’s Dictionary of American Authors) of past Pulitzer Prize winners and since it’s the first quiz of the round I’ll even give you the choices with the year they won the Pulitzer.  Leave your answers in a comment.

No Googling or looking at other commenter answers.  Yes, we’re going by the honor system 🙂  Play every week or just one time, you are always welcome 🙂  It only takes once to be eligible for a prize. 

Titles-The Age of Innocence (1921), All the King’s Men (1947), Beloved (1988), The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1928), The Confessions of Nat Turner (1968), The Good Earth (1932), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Old Man and the Sea (1953), To Kill A Mockingbird (1961), The Yearling (1939)

1. It concerns an old Cuban fisherman named Santiago who finally catches a magnificent fish after weeks of not catching anything.  The Old Man and the Sea

2. The work presents a picture of upper-class New York Society in the late 19th century.  The Age of Innocence

3. It takes place in a small Alabama town in the 1930’s and is told from the point of view of six-year-old Jean Louise Finch.  To Kill A Mockingbird

4. The story concerns the rise and fall of Willie Stark, a character modeled on Huey Long, the governor of Louisiana during the late 1920’s and early 1930’s.  All the King’s Men

5. A fictional account of the Virginia slave revolt of 1831, the novel is narrated by the leader of the rebellion.   The Confessions of Nat Turner

6. Set in the backwoods of northern Florida, the story concerns the relationship between 12-year-old Jody Baxter and Flag, the fawn he adopts.   The Yearling

7. The plot centers on five travelers in 18th century Peru who are killed when a bridge across a canyon collapses.   The Bridge of San Luis Rey

8. The work examines the destructive legacy of slavery, as it chronicles the life of a black woman named Sethe.   Beloved

9. Set during the Great Depression, it traces the migration of an Oklahoma Dust Bowl family to California and their subsequent hardships as migrant farm workers.   The Grapes of Wrath

10. [It] follows the life of Wang Lung, from his beginnings as an impoverished peasant to his eventual position as a prosperous landowner.   The Good Earth

Exploring the States:Hawaii, the Aloha State

Gage has always had a soft spot for Hawaii, who doesn’t?  We started by reading through the book and then I chose some  5-10 minute activities over the next week.  My goal is really just two activities for each of the three days and then a book or two.

1. He traced the state map and marked the capital.
2. He made this very cool state flag out of colored tape. I did the rough cutting ahead of time and then he had to use the picture from the book to recreate it.

5. Dog-of-the-Sea-Waves by James Rumford was a great book on the settling of Hawaii.  Although fictional, the story of the brothers, Hoku, Na’ale, Opua, Makani and Manu featured animals unique to Hawaii on every page and a story that could have taken place. The Polynesian brothers explored and Manu found a friend in the Monk Seal and his friend would eventually save his life. There are scary parts but everything is okay in the end. Loved this book and it’s sure to please animal lovers.  It even told the story in Hawaiin at the end, provided a glossary of all of the animals in the book and the story of the Islands.  40 pages.

Oh, how I love October in Ohio.  The leaves change color, the air turns crisp, and sweaters and jeans are brought to the front of the closet.  But there are a few other very important reasons that October is the jam.  On the 11th, since the day I was born people celebrated ME!!  Woo Hoo! I have my own day.  And then 27 years later on the 17th I married the greatest guy and people came out to celebrate then too.  And, of course, the love of my life was born on the 19th to much fanfare by the family who loves him.  It is a month of celebration around here! I already have 15 kids rsvp’d for Gage’s party and the only reason I’m not freaking out is that we’re having it somewhere else 😉

These are the things that were happening the week I was born.  Wanna take a guess on how old I’ll be this month?

The French Connection with Gene Hackman was the #1 movie in theaters.

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty was atop the New York Bestseller list.

The #1 album was Every Picture Tells a Story by Rod Stewart and the #1 song was Maggie May from the album.

Ike and Tina Turner were on the cover of Rolling Stone.

What year do you think I was born?  There’s a small prize in it for the first person who guesses correctly 🙂

At the beginning of the year I started requesting train postcards and people I’ve never met from around the world came through.  I couldn’t even get all 37 of the cards in the picture!  I still get cards that I like (trees and someone sent me a beautiful one of wine glasses yesterday) but Gage LOVES to check the mailbox everyday for train cards. That Thomas box in the picture is here he keeps them now, but I’m looking for a way to showcase them.  It’s a great way to talk about different places and to use our globe.

I’ve received a total of 306 postcards from around the world in the 2+ years I’ve been a member of Postcrossing.  AND as you will see a few fellow book bloggers made Gage’s day too, Mouse alone has sent 4. I wish we could get those two together for a playdate 🙂  Let’s take a closer look at Gage’s train…

1-Minnesota, 2-Mouse from California, 3-Germany, 4-Finland, 5-Mouse from California, 6-Connecticut, 7-Taiwan

8-from Grandma& Grandpa, 9-Taiwan, 10-England, 11-Netherlands, 12-Germany, 13-Australia, 14-Germany, 15-Canada

16-Great Britain, 17-Russia, 18-California, 19-Germany, 20-Pennsylvania, 21-Germany, 22-Minnesota

23-Taiwan, 24-Finland, 25-Kay in Texas, 26-Pennsylvania, 27-Mouse from California, 28-Netherlands

29-Latvia, 30-Japan, 31-Mouse from California, 32-California, 33-Ohio, 34-Germany

35-Taiwan, 36-Canada, 37-Virginia

Do you have a favorite?  My two favorites are 11 & 14.  If you are out and about and see a train postcard I hope you’ll consider putting it in the mail for Gage!  Which reminds me that we need to get something in the mail for Mouse 🙂