Sunday, Jul 5, 2009

The Sunday Salon: I Hit The Reading Wall!!!

I feel terribly guilty.  Here I am putting all of this energy into my blog and reading… and hitting my goals.  Then, BLAM!  I hit a wall!  I felt resentful about my reading  and the books that I had gratefully accepted to be reviewed.  I don’t know if this just stems from the fact that I’ve been reading mostly books with heavy content… or, where it came from.  So, with 30+ books needing to be read and reviewed, I went out and purchased pleasure books.

WHAT?

That’s total insanity.  Here I am not wanting to read and then I go and buy books.  I’m certifiably insane!

I think I needed some “no brainer” time.  I think that I needed to read something that took little or no energy.  So, I just read Mommywood by Tori Spelling (review is completed and set for publish on the 22nd).  That helped A LOT!  Maybe it was just the fun read that I needed to get me back focused on my reviews.  I hope so!  I just started to read Still Alice for my book club meeting on the 10th. 

So… my point in telling you this embarrassing story… has this happened to you?  What did you do?  Did you take a reading break?  Did you push through it?  How did you continue to accomplish your reading goals and commitments when you plainly didn’t feel like it?  Please share!

This Week’s Reads

This week, I reviewed: 

In My Mailbox for Review

I received The Center of the Universe by Nancy Bachrach.   I also purchased Mommywood and Half of A Yellow Sun.

Contests 

You CHICKLIT FANS… the CONTEST IS HERE!   There is a REALLY GOOD grand prize.  So… enter!

Reading Challenges 

On J. Kaye’s 100+ Reading Challenge…  I’m at 91 books done.  Therefore, my statistical update for this challenge is that I’m 91% completed with 51.34% of the year completed.  This puts me ahead of schedule by 39.66%.   I’m almost there!

Lainey Grace Update

Lainey Grace finished her final round of chemo.  She and Lori headed home and then, on Thursday, they had to head back to the hospital.  She broke out in a fever.  They were due to be released yesterday, however with the holiday I haven’t confirmed.  After this, it is all about the final blood testing to get the “all clear.”  Shortly thereafter, her PICC line can come out and she can start to resume normal life as a kid.  Lori told me that her hair is growing in… all light and fuzzy all atop her head.  Lori also told me that she has to get Lainey’s wig colored because the color is really ashen and makes her look, well, not so pretty.  

The overall good news is that it looks like she is healing!  I want to give praise to God for that and just continue to hope and pray that her health continues to improve and that her future is bright and limitless!

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

Another week that I wasn’t dazzled by.  Perhaps next week!?!

The Bachelorette 

OMG!  I loved loved loved this week’s episode.  Writing my blog post about it was a ton of fun!  Even better, I enjoyed the comments and the voters on my poll.  I cannot wait for tomorrow and this week’s upcoming post.   Until then, here is my wrap-up from this week.

America’s Got Talent/David Hasselhoff

I never got around to my David Hasselhoff post.  However, I did attempt to find a copy of Baywatch Season 8 on DVD that I could purchase for the twins.  And, I did find it.  However, I can only purchase it in Region 2 DVD format and I need a multi-national DVD player (or, something like that).  For those of you who have “techie” husbands, can you find out for me how hard that is to get converted to a normal DVD for America?  Or, will the DVD ROM on my computer play Region 2 DVD’s?  The seller of the DVD is no help and I can’t find an American DVD version of it.  The twins are driving me crazy about it.  

This week on America’s Got Talent was good.  My favorite was this chicken catcher, country-guy who sang a Garth Brooks’ song beautifully.   

At Home 

I did get over to the wetlands again and shot some pictures… but, I didn’t have time to get them prepared for this week’s post.  EXCEPT for the ones of my daughter who dropped her shoe off of the bridge.  Silly butt!  We couldn’t go on our walk because she only had one shoe and there were rocky paths. 

Kids!  I swear!

I’m pre-writing this post so that I can enjoy the 4th of July.  So, the plans for the holiday are to meet up with Lisa and her two girls and head down to the local city parade.  Should be fun!  Then, the kids and I are going to bar-be-que and later ride our bikes down to the high-school to watch the fireworks.  I’m making typical BBQ… pork ribs, baked beans, corn on the cob, and brownies with ice cream.  YUM!

I completed my mid-terms this week and scored “A’s” on both!  Yeah for me! 

I’m plugging away on a business opportunity and following up on job leads.  I’m praying like crazy for a source of income!

I also was able to fix my URL for my blog.  I think I lost quite a few of my readers who didn’t get my post about the new feed address for their subscription.  If you missed it, here it is:  http://anovelmenagerie.com/2009/06/30/blogging-update/.

Also, this week I started my new feature.. The Score… a weekly post about a musical artist and song that I appreciate.  If you’re interested, you can check out my post here:  http://anovelmenagerie.com/2009/07/02/the-score-adele/ or you can play the song of the week in The Score Player in my sidebar (see the woman with the microphone???).

This week’s The Writer’s Block entry was about appreciation for freedom in America.  I was feeling quite patriotic as I neared the 4th of July.  Here’s the post: http://anovelmenagerie.com/2009/07/03/the-writers-block-freedo/

And, for the movie lovers, this week’s Monday’s Movie was He’s Just Not That Into You.   Cool, huh?  I’m going to try to get Last Chance Harvey watched and reviewed for next week’s.  The neat thing was all of the other movie reviews that posted on Monday that participated in the meme!  Some great reviews.  If you are interested, check out the links on Mr. Linky in my blog post.

So, it looks like I’m set on my future new format and I’m excited about it.  I hope that it will be a more “well-rounded” blog to match my big ole’ round and curvy figure.  I’m afraid that I did not get much exercise this week.  BOOOOO, Sheri!

I hope that y’all had a great 4th and that you’re recovering from the holiday well!

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!

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