I’ve been just plug-plug-pluggin’ away at my school work.  Saturday morning, I had the pleasure of a midterm.  I haven’t had one of those in a while!  It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.

The twins are trying to adjust to being out of school.  I had so much going on this week that I wasn’t as properly prepared to entertain them this as much as I should have been.  They deserve more from me.  Although, they did get so sunburned at the beach on Father’s Day that they couldn’t move until Tuesday.  We did go on some walks and went to the park, but I’m a bit bummed that we didn’t accomplish more.

There are some pictures from my week and I have some “small” news about minor changes to my blog… check it out!

This Week’s Reads

This week, I read and reviewed: 

In My Mailbox for Review

I received Wife of The Gods by Kewie Quartey, Tour de Force by Elizabeth White, The Depression Cure, Friday Night Lights, The Women’s Room & The Love Children by Marilyn French.  Oh… and, I also received Eat Your Feelings by Heather Whaley and two ChickLit books by Mary Carter.

I got all of my review copies organized by publish date so that I can try to schedule the reviews as soon as possible.  All of the books in my first stack have already been published.  EEK!

Contests 

You CHICKLIT FANS are going to LOVE LOVE LOVE my new contest that starts next week.  OH YES YOU ARE! 

Here’s my super-fabulous-wonderful-amazing-thrilling poster about the contest:

Reading Challenges 

On J. Kaye’s 100+ Reading Challenge…  I’m at 88 books done.  Therefore, my statistical update for this challenge is that I’m 88% completed with 49.44% of the year completed.  This puts me ahead of schedule by 38.6%.  

I need to get my tushie in gear on my Book Awards III and Classics Challenges!  Oh, yes I do!

Lainey Grace Update

Lainey Grace is back in the hospital for her final round of chemotherapy.  From what Lori states on her Caring Bridge Journal entry (Friday), things are going very well.  I think that they should be heading home next week.  Fingers crossed!

For all of you who have kept this family in your prayers, I personally want to thank you, again!  In case you haven’t read Lainey Grace’s story, you can access it by clicking  HERE. 

On TV 

So You Think You Can Dance

I was not as thrilled with the dance routines this week.  I felt that there were a couple of good ones, but nothing that really MOVED me.  I agree with the dancers that were cut this week and wish them well.  I’m wondering how many tribute to Michael Jackson routines they will have next week.

The Bachelorette 

My favorite post of the week, my recap on The Bachelorette, had record-breaking stats this week!  I just love the comments that I get on this post and encourage y’all to leave one if you happen to read Tuesday’s post.  It looks like my readers agree with me that Wes should get kicked off the show next week!  I can only hope!  Until then, here is my wrap-up from this week.

America’s Got Talent

Anyway, the twins are bugging me TO DEATH about David Hasselhoff.  The twins filmed a season of Baywatch, hence the 1001 questions about it.  I was going to write my Friday’s Feature: The Writer’s Block about my David Hasselhoff Harassment, but I got too tied up with school on Friday.  Therefore, I’ll post it next Friday and hopefully bring a bit of a smile to your face!   

At Home 

I went to meet David Ebershoff at a bookstore reading in Pasadena.  I got to meet Florinda and Amy.  I went with Lisa of Books On The Brain.  Her brother also met us there and tagged along.   It was cool.  I purchased more books… NOT GOOD since I have so many to read as it is!  I purchased Speak, Moloka’i and Gilead.   Anyway, I must have gained like 50 pounds because I look so so so chubby-licious in the pictures.  Despite my roundish figure, here’s a picture: 

And, I forgot my book (for the signing) in my car in Orange County.  How absolutely STUPID am I to forget the most important thing that you bring to a book signing?  Ugh.  Anyway, so here’s a picture of David sharing about his book:

And, then we all went for coffee at the bookstore’s internal coffee house.  A famous actress, who for the life of me I cannot come up with her name, was there.  Also, we were joined by “Captain Fantastic” (as donned by Lisa’s brother).  He was quite the character and I couldn’t help but staring at him during his antics.  At one point, he interrupted us to leave us his “business card” for his flying circus, which was really a crazy love note (picture below).  He also mentioned that we can find him locally, until Lisa told him that we weren’t locals.  But, he didn’t care, he was positive that we’d find him anyway!

So, look behind Amy in this picture and you’ll see a picture of him.  He kinda looked like Einstein with red hair.

Lisa’s brother had the best picture… but, he didn’t email it to me to share it!  Shucks!  That guy had me in giggles. 

Well, I already mentioned that school swallowed me up.  In addition to school, I’ve been exercising this week.  After I saw the chubby-bubby bookstore pictures, I said to myself.. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!  And, off I went on nightly walks.  Nicole and I went on a 2+ mile trek around the Bolsa Chica Wetlands on Thursday Night.  Here are some pics that I shot:

There is some remarkable wildlife there.  We saw a sting ray, fish, lizards, and all kinds of cool birds.  I’m going to visit it again this upcoming week.  There is this one bird that does this amazing dive & swoop to collect food.  I plan to video record it and post it for you to see.  I know that I occasionally have readers who aren’t familiar with the wetlands and the cool native birds and wildlife that we have.  Colie and I also spotted a California Brown Pelican… on the endangered species list.  So awesome!

After the wetlands, Colie’s twin decided to stay the night at a friend’s house.  So, Colie and I went out to sushi for a light bite.  I sat next to a guy that I thought was pretty cool.  There was also a couple that I met who were married for 21 years.  I liked them, as well.  There was a party at the restaurant on Saturday night with $1 Saki.  But, I was too afraid to go because Colie said that I was flirting with that nice guy.  So… I’m a big chicken and I’ll never get any dates at this speed!

About my note on the changes to my blog.  I spent some time talking to Lisa about the future of my blog.  I explained to her that I really wanted to make it my goal to maintain an “entertainment” blog.  What I’d like to house are reviews on books, movies, television, and music.  In addition, I want to keep up my Friday Feature: The Writer’s Block.  I really love to creatively write and that’s a post that I really look forward to writing.  So, that would result in my blog looking something like this:

Sunday:  The Sunday Salon (Weekly Freelance Recap Post)

Monday:  Monday’s Movie (Movie Review)

Tuesday: Television Show Review (Typically DWTS or The Bachelor/ette)

Wednesday:  Book Review

Thursday: Music Feature – Song of the Week

Friday: The Writer’s Block

Saturday: 2nd Book Review

I also need to start looking into possible income streams for my blog/writing over the next 6 months or so.  If at all possible, I’d like to generate some type of revenue to assist with my financial situation.  I don’t know if that’s possible or plausible for A Novel Menagerie… but, it’s worth a try. 

As always, my thanks to all of you for reading not only this post, but the others as well.   Your readership means the world to me!  AND, your comments are invaluable to me!

Happy Birthday, I.

11 Responses to “The Sunday Salon: Book Signing, Mid-Terms & Wetlands”