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Updates & a giveaway winner

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Things have been a little crazy around here and the blog (and blog visiting) has gone by the wayside.  My birthday was last week and Jason took me away for a night, our 16 year anniversary is Friday, and Gage is turning 4 on Saunday!  This is his first year having a friend party and like a newbie I worried about renting a place and having no kids show up.  sigh.  So, I foolishly decided to have it at our house.  Then they ripped off our deck and won’t put it back on until someone else comes and takes a look at something.  Next Wednesday. Ok, no deck, it’ll be chilly no big deal (except for the hideous looking cavernous space right outside the biggest door/window in the house).  Remember how I was worried no one would show up?  We’re up to 11 kid rsvps plus parents. That’s 11 3-5 year olds to entertain for 2 hours.  Plus I did invite a few other people who work with Gage.  Bah! Anyway, as I sit typing this I am really thinking about how much needs to get done before Sunday.  But I do love a party 🙂

I need to get a few things off my to-do list.

I promised a prize for a quiz a few weeks ago and I have a winner. Both Hannah and Nise got perfect scores (no surprise there!)  and Gage drew a name….Hannah!  There’s no photo evidence because I’m having technical difficulties (of course!).  I will be mailing off her surprise gift from the Library of Congress soon (soon means after the party).

I made a quiz this morning, but it’s for Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon this weekend.  You still have time to sign-up!  My quiz will be hour 11 (6pm EST) if you want to come back and take a look.

You may see me around this week here or elsewhere on the blogs but if not don’t take it personally. It’s been a long time since we had a party here and I’m probably just freaking out 🙂

 

Traveling!

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Oh, how I miss traveling.  It is difficult to plan trips with Gage because of his therapy schedule and even more, his allergies.  Hopefully we’ll be taking a short family trip at the end of the month, BUT this week (like in a few hours) Jason and I are sneaking off for 3 whole nights!  Jason has a conference in the DC area so I’m tagging along to visit old haunts (this is where Jason and I met 18 1/2 years ago).  No quiz. Haven’t had the time or the energy. Maybe the few days away will revive me 🙂

IMG_0626Gage at the library yesterday.  Isn’t his new haircut cute?

What’s in a Name? Quiz – guessing closed

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quiz  This week it’s all about names.  As I walked through the library and picked up books that had names in the title it only took me a few minutes before my arms were full.  These were all published in the last several years.

Take your best guesses, be entered to win a prize.  No cheating (using the web to help find answers) or copying.  All extra details can be found here.

Leave your guesses in the comment section until Sunday.  

You only need to give me 2 names per book, the one missing from the title and the author’s first name.  Since I think these are tricky they are all worth 10 points 🙂

names quiz

1 Julia/Ann   2Willow Frost/Jamie   3Stephen Mercedes   4Lisette/Susan   5Noa P Singleton/Elizabeth   6Benjamin Franklin/Sally   7Claudia Silver/Kathy   8Amy/Jincy   9Stella Bain/Anita   10Worthy Brown/Phillip   11Maya/Isabel   12Scarlet/Marissa   13Mrs. Dimple/Mignon

Answers the last week’s Robin Williams quiz here.  Leaderboard here.

Tuesday Quiz Winners!!!

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I wanted to post this Tuesday, but my computer decided not to let me transfer photos from my phone, grr.  Today, after a little begging, I had better luck.

Round One of 2014  is officially over and we have a repeat winner…

Nise!! (Under the Boardwalk)

This is Nise’s very impressive 7th win in 13 rounds!  This round there were 25 participants so she will be receiving a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble.  Congratulations!

And now for my randomly chosen winner, or maybe I should say Gage’s randomly chosen winner…

IMG_6651IMG_6654Michelle! (The True Book Addict)

Michelle will be receiving a special gift from me just for participating 🙂

Thank you all for playing along with me on Tuesdays and letting me get back to my teaching roots by making quizzes and grading them.  Quizzes will be back in July – please come back and play with me 🙂

Book problem, year 7

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Another year, another wall of unread books.  When I started blogging in 2008 I took this picture of my unread books…

 

Oh, how worried I was. “That’s Max looking a little nervous that all those books might topple over on him!  So, instead of being funny, it made me a little sad that I had gotten this far behind 😦  I will go to the book sale this weekend, but I’m taking Jason to limit my craziness.  But, then I need to spend a few months reading through my backlog before buying anything new.”

Haha!  So, silly I was to think this wasn’t going to get worse.

So, every year I recreate the wall (the same way, because I can get a little OCD about things) and then add the new books I’ve acquired.

For those of you who saw my Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-Thon mini-challenge you will be prepared for my big reveal.

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I managed to read 25 from my stacks last year and give some more, BUT somehow I acquired (through giveaway, book sales, gifts) a net addition of 98 to my overflowing stacks.   That’s a total of 837  unread books.

Some of you may wonder how long it takes me to recreate these stacks every year.  Because I want them in the same place they were the year before I do a few hours of prep by putting the books of each stack together, then another few hours (3 maybe) to move the books to the space. I consider this my workout for the week 🙂 I count, update my lists, take a few pictures for another 45 minutes or so.   It’s always the cleanup that takes the longest, because I’m tired and do it all in a night’s time.  There is no way I’d do this when Gage was awake, I’ve had stacks fall over before, although not this year.

I took this picture a month ago and, thanks to the 24 hour read-a-thon, I’ve already read 6 and gave away 7.  Okay, okay, I’ve also acquired 7 more so the dent isn’t as large as I’d like but I’m working on it 🙂

Time to fess up.  How many books are you hoarding holding in your TBR piles?

Quizless

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Ok, I know I’ve been pretty inconsistent with the Tuesday quizzes this last month and I would like to say I’ll do better, BUT I won’t.  I worked on a quiz last night (a fun one I’ve never done before) and I couldn’t get it to work on the blog.  I’m going to play around with it this week and see if I can figure it out, but I don’t have any more time to devote to it today.

Carry on with your Tuesday 🙂

Answers to last week’s quiz here.

Read-a-Thon Shelfie & First Edition Challenges

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deweys-readathonbuttonFor this challenge we are supposed to take a picture of our shelves.  During my hour 18 mini-challenge you will see my books so I don’t want to spoil the surprise, BUT I will share a shelfie of the books I put aside to read from today.  See any you love?

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Since this is an ARC I don’t know if the same rules apply.  Is it truly a first edition you think?

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Mailbox Monday – February 10

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mmb-300x282Mailbox 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.

IMG_5360I received The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh from Lloyd (The Book Sage) after a win on his blog. He raves about it so I’m excited 🙂  Thank you Lloyd!

I received a copy of Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen from the publisher and since I already purchased a copy it looks like there’s a giveaway coming up!

I picked up While I’m Falling by Laura Moriarty for under $2 at Barnes & Noble yesterday 🙂

So what showed up in your mailbox this week?