Weekends with Gage- the 3rd Birthday edition

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So, Jason and I arrived back to our Cleveland area home Friday night at 10 pm from our weeklong Gageless vacation. It was exactly what we both needed and I will probably post a few fun pics next weekend.  This weekend it’s all about Gage.

He turned 3 today. I can’t believe it and yet I welcome it. I have never been a girl who had to have a baby. I love kids, but babies, not as much. So, as Gage sheds his baby status and heads into kid cuteness I am 100% on board. I love watching him grow and figure things out.  Life with Gage has been full of ups and downs, but the boy never ceases to amaze me.  He is smart and sweet, sassy and adorable.  My life has been transformed by him.  It’s a new journey that I am excited and privileged to take.

I don’t have the time right now to go through photos of the last year, BUT I can show him at every birthday.

Gage at 1.

Gage a t 2.

bdcake1Gage at 3.

And a few other pics from the day.

3bdcakeHis yummy dairy free, gluten free birthday cake made by Grandma. bdcake2Blowing out the last candle.  And Gage and me with his new engineer hat bdhatThis went very nicely with his new Thomas Lionel train set.  I hope to share this fun story with you later this week.

Can you believe that Gage is 3? And still not one haircut!  He seems to be keeping up with other kids his age in the height and weight department, but hair is different story.

I’m on vacation

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I was so hoping to be more organized than this. I hate to leave my blog dormant for a week 😦  I should have used some of my read-a-thon time to write reviews!

Jason and I are taking our first Gageless vacation.  Today, we’re driving up to Vermont and staying the week. On Thursday we’ll be at a resort in the mountains on our private balcony celebrating our 15 year anniversary 🙂  We’ll be back to celebrate Gage’s 3rd birthday on Saturday.   Thank goodness for awesome parents or else we couldn’t do it.

I am looking forward to some relaxation. A few of you know that last week we bid on a new house, negotiated a good price and then it fell apart during inspection.  It was a stressful week. (ie sorry I haven’t been visiting your blogs)

I’m sure I’ll be posting pics on Facebook. If we aren’t already friends, look me up.

Here’s one from last week that I can’t even believe I’m putting on here because I am a total mess. Oh well, can’t be a cover girl everyday, LOL. Here’s Gage helping me blow out the candles on my birthday cake.

mybd

Dewey’s Read-a-Thon Wrap-Up

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Twice, I’ve been able to do the whole 24 hours, but this time around I dragged myself to bed at 4am.  I made it 20 hours 🙂  I’m ok with that. I think I made a mistake in my book selection this year and that’s why I couldn’t power through. That or the stressful week caught up with me. I woke up at 10 find that I’d won a prize in the last hour, woo hoo!

A Readathon tradition!

  1. Which hour was most daunting for you? I started having a hard time around 1:30 and couldn’t get past it.  Threw in the towel at 4.
  2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?  I made the mistake of pulling short books from my shelves, ones that I had no real desire to read at the time. Choose a thriller, a humor book, and one graphic novel to start your pile and go from there.
  3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? As it is every year, it was perfect from the organizing end. Lots of fun challenges and prizes.
  4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?  I think everything worked, except I wish the cheerleaders didn’t have to wade through so many different formats for participants.  Maybe divide up tumblr, booktube, goodreads, twitter, facebook, foreign languages, blogs into separate lists?  Hm, now that I type that I see the problem 😉
  5. How many books did you read? I finished 5, started 1 and continued some listening of The Passage.
  6. What were the names of the books you read? Seduction by Brenda Joyce, A Gracious Plenty by Sheri Reynolds, I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron, Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt, The Diving Bell & the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby are the ones I finished.
  7. Which book did you enjoy most? A Gracious Plenty by Sheri Reynolds was the bright spot of the day. LOVED IT
  8. Which did you enjoy least? I feel bad saying this and maybe it was because I was struggling to stay awake, but I didn’t care for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
  9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?  This was my first year committing so much time to cheering and I had fun. Try to have something generic (a cheer you wrote, a quote…ready to go so you can add that on to anything personal you might say. It will help you cheer a little faster.
  10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?  Absolutely!  I love the read-a-thon. There were so many new faces this time so a new group has fallen in love too!

Thank you so much ladies for all the hard work you put in to make it fantastic for everyone. You rocked it 🙂

Updates and Mini Challenges

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I am soooo tired  It’s almost 2:30 am and I’m struggling. I am listening to The Passage. I have no expectation of finishing but I am on disc 20 so it’s giving my eyes a break now and then.  I have finished 2 short books since the halfway mark, I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron and Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit. I’m almost halfway through The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby.

Thanks for the cheers and encouragement 🙂

I’m doing 2 mini challenges

Book Jenga

rat jenga

I took these slight books from my read-a-thon stack

Show It Off

rat2

I don’t collect rare books, but last year Jason got me a signed Outlander and signed first Harry Potter. And last year When I met Chelsea Cain at Bouchercon she gave me a signed severed finger to go with my first edition hardcover of Heartsick.  Cool 🙂

Read-a-Thon Best of Challenge

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I haven’t participated in enough mini-challenges so I’m giving this one a shot.

 I’m supposed to choose 3 categories and give you my picks from my reading year. 

Best Mystery Book of Your Reading Year – Without a doubt it’s Still Life by Louise Penny.  I have A Fatal Grace, the second in the series as possibility for read-a-thon reading but I’ll probably stick to shorter books.

Best Setting of Your Reading Year – Loved the Scotland setting of The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley.  Loved the book too so it’s a win-win.

Best Author of Your Reading Year – This goes to Beth Hoffman. Her second book, Looking for Me, was another winner and she is a regular commenter here on the blog (thank you) and a wonderful and warm woman in person. I was lucky to be able to see her speak during her book tour. Love her.

There are more categories but I want to get back to reading 🙂

 

Halfway mark! A winner, a survey and a progress report.

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First, thank you to everyone who entered my mini-challenge! There were 54 participants who earned 380 points.  How do I randomly choose a winner?  Easy I asked our new babysitter, Nicki, for the winning number (238) and then worked down the list accordingly and found our winner… #39 Nisaba Be Praised.  Congratulations on winning a #24 gift card 🙂

So, since this morning, I’ve read two books, Seduction by Brenda Joyce and A Gracious Plenty by Sheri Reynolds (which I will be raving about on the blog soon), made it through all of Team Tiger’s cheer list once, read in the hot tub, drove by myself to Longhorn (listening to The Passage by Justin Cronin) and had a late lunch (strawberry salad and a glass of white wine) while I read. When I came back home to choose a winner for my mini-challenge I realized that I NEVER think about how long it takes to tally the points (an hour) so I need to fix that next time. Once done here I’m going to start a new book and finish it before I cheer or visit. It’s time to be a little selfish with my reading.

Mid-Event Survey

1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired?  Not yet, but I can feel it coming shortly.
2) What have you finished reading?  2 books
3) What is your favorite read so far?  LOVED A Gracious Plenty by Sheri Reynolds, 5 stars!
4) What about your favorite snacks?  Ate at Longhorn 🙂
5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon? If so, give them some love!  Honestly, I have visited so many and will revisit more tonight or during the week, so none to call out right now.

Back to the reading portion of my day 🙂

Books on Books Mini-Challenge – Closed, winner

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Welcome Read-a-Thon friends!  I’m in it for the whole 24 hours today, not a luxury I get every time.  Obviously we all love books.  I went through my shelves this week and pulled the ones that have books on the cover and then I threw (carefully placed) some leaves from our maple tree on them and took a picture.

I’m giving away $24 to Barnes & Noble (US winner) OR the Book Depository (international).

There are 2 ways to enter

1. Guess as many of the titles you can in my picture.  12 entries available (1 for every correct answer). I’ll periodically hide your comments so you won’t be tempted to cheat 😉

AND/OR

2. Pull some books from your own shelves that have books on the cover, take a picture, post it, and post the link in the comment section.  Good for 6 entries.

I hope you are all having fun and I’ll be by to visit everyone who enters 🙂

I’ll be drawing for a winner at 6 pm EST (hour 11)

1readathonThe Uncommon Reader, Gunn’s Golden Rules, Life As We Know It, The 13th Tale, The Lost Memories of Jane Austen, The Reader, Bridget Jones’s Diary, This Book is Overdue!, The Know-It-All, How to Buy a Love of Reading, My Reading Life, The Last Lecture If you want to extend your break time I do have a Tom Clancy quiz posted too.

Hour 4 of the read-a-thon

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I just finished my first book! Seduction by Brenda Joyce.  It was good. I participated in 2 mini-challenges and am going to do some cheering before my own mini-challenge posts at 1.  Hope you’ll come back to visit! 

 

It’s Read-a-Thon time!

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Woo Hoo!  My birthday was yesterday and I told Jason all I wanted for a present was 24 hours to participate in the read-a-thon (+recovery time) without any mother duties.  I think he considers himself lucky that he didn’t have to come up with some great gift. I did that myself 🙂

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?  I’m in the Cleveland area of Ohio. 
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?  Not sure, to be honest. I pulled a lot of short books from shelves and hope  they call my name when it time to choose.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? I don’t really have one but I might go to a coffee shop later to eat and read.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!  Well yesterday I turned 21 twice  (a nice way of saying I turned 42). Next week my husband and I will celebrate our 15 year anniversary in Vermont and my son will turn 3 the day after we get back.  Mid October is a big time around here!
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? I want to take more time connecting and participating. I want to do more mini-challenges and  a little more cheering.  I plan on making it the whole 24 hours just like the last 2 times 🙂

So, what are YOUR plans for the day?

Brewster by Mark Slouka

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Brewster: A NovelBrewster. Finished 10-3-13, rating 4.25/5, fiction, 283 pages, pub. 2013

My friend Golda, who works at WW Norton, sent me this ARC in the spring telling me that she thought I’d like it.  It didn’t look like my normal reading, but I trusted her.  It’s a coming of age story in the Vietnam War era (I should have told her that a college class I took on post-Vietnam literature ruined this period for me)  BUT, this book is beautifully written. I can’t even tell you how many of the passages leapt off the page and had me wishing I had a pen and paper, too many to keep track of for sure.  It is a slow novel, even for such a slim one, but it does pack a punch at the end that was so satisfying.

The year is 1968. The world is changing, and sixteen-year-old Jon Mosher is determined to change with it. Racked by guilt over his older brother’s childhood death and stuck in the dead-end town of Brewster, New York, he turns his rage into victories running track. Meanwhile, Ray Cappicciano, a rebel as gifted with his fists as Jon is with his feet, is trying to take care of his baby brother while staying out of the way of his abusive, ex-cop father. When Jon and Ray form a tight friendship, they find in each other everything they lack at home, but it’s not until Ray falls in love with beautiful, headstrong Karen Dorsey that the three friends begin to dream of breaking away from Brewster for good. Freedom, however, has its price. As forces beyond their control begin to bear down on them, Jon sets off on the race of his life—a race to redeem his past and save them all. (from Goodreads)

Let’s start by saying that if swearing turns you off, this is not the book for you.  They are rebellious teen boys, especially Ray, and it’s a little bit jarring at first.  After that I didn’t notice it as much.  I don’t know  if this was because there was less swearing or I just accepted it and stopped noticing it. But on to the story.

Jon is the good kid, the one with good grades, a physical talent, and two still married parents, but you learn that his parents are broken and withholding affection.  His mother is a tough pill to swallow, but Ray’s father took withholding affection to a whole other level.  These two boys meet on common ground even though looking from the outside you might not see the connection (insert your own governemt shutdown reference here).  I love the friendship between the boys and the foursome they made with Frank and Karen.

The impact of the slow but powerful storytelling was that the surprising end snuck up on me.  

Thank you Golda!!!