Finally Friday

Hey folks!  It's Friday!   I'm so excited to get past this work week and get the weekend started!

I have been so busy with crafty stuff lately that I haven't finished a single book this week.  I'm very close to finishing a few, hopefully this weekend.  We have the grand opening of our booth on Monday so we'll finish getting set up tomorrow.  After we finish, I may do some traveling and visiting, but I really hope to do some reading.

Here's some random terrible attempts at selfies from me and the Princess to get your weekend started.

Do you have big plans for the weekend?

More Crafting?

I have some very exciting crafting news!  I have committed to a place to sell my wares!  The downside, I guess is that I better get to crafting!  I already had a few things tucked away in a gift closet, but I'll break those out and get them set up.  I spent most of my crafting time making displays, so I didn't do much crafting for sale.

Just this pic and one other I didn't get a shot of.

In other news, I got to see my friend for a short time over the weekend and cheer her on while she ran her race.  For some reason, we didn't take any selfies this weekend, weird.

I did almost no reading this weekend save for a little of my audiobook on a short road trip for supplies on Sunday, but I'm sure I'll make up for that very soon.

What did you do this weekend?  What are you reading?

Weekend Recap

Welcome to Monday, friends!  (well, friend, I'm pretty sure only one person reads this...)

Anyway,  did you do anything interesting this weekend?  I did!  Saturday was Granny's 75th birthday.  A bunch of us got together to give her home a face lift.  Wall texture, paint, scrubbing and polishing.  Looks like a whole new house!  Happy Birthday Granny!

 <Very preggo sister got some light duty



Hubs was actually happier than he looks He got to use his mad remodel skills. to help.>

Paint!

Prep!

Clean!

We mostly had a great time and the look on Granny and Papa's faces at the end of the day was priceless.  It's always good to put your own stuff aside and do things for others.







Sunday was a SUPER lazy day after all that work on Saturday.  I finished Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor and will probably wait to review the last two books together after I finish Dreams of Gods & Monsters.  I finally cracked the spine on this month's book club book, more on that later.  Then I watched a lot of Lost.  A lot... seriously.

What fun did you have this weekend?  What are you reading?

R.I.P. Goblin King

After 30 years, I had still held out hope that there may be a Labyrinth sequel, but alas, that dream has died.  By now you all know that David Bowie passed away on Sunday after losing his 18-month battle with cancer.  While I was very upset by this news, I hadn't planned to post on this blog about it until today.  Someone posted a list of his top 100 books on the internet and since it's on the internet it must be true, right?  How cool is that!  Of course someone has created a GoodReads list for it too!  Use the list to track the books as you read them.  I already had a few of the books on my TBR list and there are a ton of classics that I probably should have read by now anyway.  It's a pretty eclectic list because he was a pretty eclectic guy, I may attempt a few.

R.I.P. Jareth, Ziggy Stardust, the Great Mr. Bowie.  You will be missed.

All the Wisdom is Gone, Yet the Crafting Remains

I promised to do more life updates, so here we go:

On Tuesday I had my wisdom teeth out.  Super fun, right?

They left me alone while the lidocaine did it's thing, so I took a super hot selfie.  Doesn't everyone do this? Maybe just bloggers and narcissists, which does that make me?

All four wisdom teeth out, does that mean I'll never be wise?  I hope not!

Sad gauze face selfie.

I felt pretty good right after the procedure.  I didn't want to have to go under since it wasn't necessary but I think I nearly ripped the armrests off the chair when the dentist broke those teeth loose.  I'm glad it's over now!

I've also been trying my hand at jewelry making lately and crafty stuff lately.  Mom has been doing so much bead work lately that she is going to set up a booth at a couple shows.  I decided to throw a few things together and join her.  What do you think so far?  I need to improve my photography skills, but the jewelry looks nice in person.

 A rabbit with a waistcoat?

 I was commissioned to make several of these resin map charm necklaces at Christmas time, they are very fun to make.

Paper crafting is like therapy for me.  So relaxing and I get to tear stuff up and put it back together in a different way.

What have you been up to lately?  

Resolutions? What resolutions?

Well folks, I'm a couple days behind on the challenges my tiny trainer is pushing me to do, but only because she wasn't home this weekend.  She expects me to make up for it though and get caught back up, so I'm sore today.  Plank doesn't look that hard when you watch someone else, but trust me, it's brutal!

I hope to update you on the meal plan thing I mentioned last week, but I never remember to take pictures of what I'm cooking.  I promise to get better at that.  I am really loving this plan and I really want to tell you about it!

I also decided that 2016 would be the year of the blog.  I'd like to get more organized and post more regular updates about things other than book reviews.  While I do read a whole lot, there are other things in my life too!  I should tell you more and take more pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I'm sure you have all seen the selfie stick, right?  I have laughed at people for owning these things because it seems very silly to me.  Well, someone got me one for Christmas and I gotta say, I kinda like it.  Now I don't carry it around with me, although I could, it fits in my purse, but I have played with it some and posted a few pics on Instagram.  I wouldn't have purchased this on my own, but I'm glad I got one as a gift.  It's kinda fun!

Note the pile of books

What's in your phone's photo gallery?

The New Hunger by Isaac Marion

Remember a few months ago when I told you how much I loved Warm Bodies?  Well, I finally got to read the prequel and it did not disappoint!  In this novella, we get a little bit of the background as to what is happening before Julie has settled in the stadium.  What was life like after Life started to end?  How did Nora and Julie and R get to where they were?  On Isaac Marion's blog he talks about how he wrote the prequel second on purpose "because your knowledge of book 1 changes the way you read it".  Boy was he right!  If I had read The New Hunger first, I probably would have never read Warm Bodies because The New Hunger would have been a pretty depressing book.  Equipped with my knowledge of the events of Warm Bodies, the prequel while sad at times, is full of hope.

Like I said with Warm Bodies, I love that Marion can spin together a beautiful story using words that aren't generally associated with beauty or happiness.  With zombies being an 'in' thing right now, so many writers and television shows and movies want to see how much they can scare their audience or gross us out.  It's refreshing that Marion adds so much humanity to his zombies while still maintaining that zombies aren't pretty or nice or somehow all good.  Some zombies are good guys while so many are still the bad guys just like some of the people can be bad guys.  I felt like he kept me on my toes and maintains a level of intensity and anxiety for the characters but without the gross factor.  He tells a story and doesn't just try to scare the reader.

Needless to say, I'm still very excited to get the next books in this series and this is saying something!  Do you know how many series I've started and never finished?  I can't think of any series that I've finished.  I had a tough time putting both of these books down.  I don't keep many books on my own book shelf because I'm trying not to be a hoarder.  I want to share books so I usually donate the books I buy to the library or pass them on to a friend, but these are books that I will have on my shelf in case I want to reread.  Feel free to send me an ARC of the next book, otherwise I'll preorder from Amazon!  Be sure to check out the author's website to stay up to date and check out a couple short stories here and here.

What should I read until The Burning World comes out in August?