Hop & Follow Fridays

This is a weekly event hosted by Jen at Crazy For Books. It's a chance to discover new blogs and to garner new readers for your blog as well.

This Week's Question ...

How many blogs do you follow?

As of right now, by Blogger’s statistics, I “follow” 664 blogs. I don’t know if you’d say that I necessarily follow them all religiously. I get on about three times a day and spend about an hour or so going through my Google Reader, catching up on all the latest posts. So, if you update frequently, there’s a better chance of me actually “following” you more than other blogs.

To join Parajunkee's new feature and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Host { Parajunkee.com } and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow our Featured Bloggers.
3. Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow Follow Follow as many as you can.
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love...and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!

Home Sweet Home!

So, I’m sure by now that you guys have figured out in some way or another that I am, indeed, back home from my beach trip. All I can say is that I missed my blog so much!! I know this is just supposed to be a hobby that I do in my spare time … but, I find that when I don’t have access to it, I go a little crazy. Not only that, I miss my fellow bloggers and my followers! I feel like I’m abandoning you guys when I leave!

My vacation was definitely needed, I cannot lie about that. I had a blast with my friends. We went to the aquarium, had plenty of drinks (though I won’t lie I tend to drink way less than my friends and assume the ‘Mommy’ role – as I proved Saturday night when I had to take one of my friends to the ER), played games, enjoyed being lazy on the beach, took long walks around the town, and even did some fishing (Nick caught his first shark! I’m bragging, even if it was only a foot long!). The main point to the beach trip is that everyone relaxed. We didn’t care about work, drama, or anything that has caused us stress. It was g-r-e-a-t!

But, like all good things, it had to come to an end. I’m back at home and trying to get back into the swing of things. I won’t lie to you guys, I’m pretty dead on my feet. The last day at the beach, my husband Nick got food poisoning from something … so, I had to play doctor the past two days – which included driving the 3+ hours home from the beach on less than four hours of sleep. I won’t get any rest this weekend because I’m traveling to my hometown to spend the weekend with my parents and help them fix up their rental house, which is turning into more of a chore than anything for all of us.

Fear not, though … I will be back in full force on Monday. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on how I want to work on my blog and I figured something out to do that will keep me busy – all of the books that I have on my GoodReads account, I am going to review on this blog! I’m also thinking about reviewing for the Examiner for my area as well – there’s already a book examiner, but I think there should be a Young Adult examiner as well. Why? Not enough kids I know are getting into reading – including some of my family members. I’m hoping to change this, one small step at a time. (Nevermind, too many horror stories there!)

So, starting MONDAY, there will more way more reviews and just more posts in general. It’s exciting!!

30 Days of Insight: Day 11

It is now Day 11 of 30 Days of Insight, inspired by Lost in YA Wonderland. Today is:

Favorite picture ever taken of yourself.

This is the easiest Insight post to date! After seeing this, I'm sure that a lot of people will think that I am about the most immature 26 year old you've ever met -- and you'll probably be right on the money. ;) This picture was taken at my wedding reception. After all the madness of getting ready for the wedding and the wedding itself (where I offered the wrong hand for my ring - whoops!), I was ready to relax and have some grub. My friend Josh, who was my photographer, was going around taking pictures of everyone at my wedding ... and he squatted down by our table and said, "Say cheese." Well, no one was paying attention, so I decided to go a little more drastic than just smiling ...

I shared a look at what I was eating at the time! In any case, I have more serious looks ... but, I always fall back on this picture because it's me being crazy, which is a lot more fun!

30 Days of Insight: Day 10 (Belated)

It is now Day 10 of 30 Days of Insight, inspired by Lost in YA Wonderland. Today is:

A dream you had this week described in detail.

Maybe I am the only one like this, but giving detailed accounts of my dreams is just impossible - mainly because my dreams are bits and clusters of different things all mixed together. I blame my brain, that never likes to actually shut down when I want to sleep. I always think of scenes for stories, lyrics to songs, upcoming events in my personal life, etc etc. Needless to say, I go through this for about an hour before I get sick of it and try to concentrate on the "white door" visualization that I use in meditation. This typically works.

I guess I can describe a group of those clusters for you that I had the other night. It started out as a scene from my story, Choke. In the scene, my main character has just had a huge fight with her best friend over her other friend, who just so happens to be a guy. The girl friend is trying to hook up with the guy friend and it's just not happening because the guy doesn't want the girl. So, said girl takes it out on the main girl, blaming her for the guy not being interested in other girls because he's in love with the main character. Main character is walking home in the pouring rain trying to figure out her feelings for her best [guy] friend. When she reaches her house, the guy is there sitting on her bed and she realizes just by looking at him that there is more than friendship there - though she never realizes it before. This scene ends with the guy walking up to her and her putting her hand on his chest.

Then, we flip scenes to me walking with a guy (who looks eerily like Jackson Rathbone) in the woods to a camp site where we're meeting up with a big group to build a community in said woods for homeless people. This dream doesn't last long, but it basically just entails me walking with the guy (I call him Jesse) through the "future town" trying to figure out where everything is going to go.

The end is me at a carnival with an old friend who's name is John. We're in the line for the ferris wheel and, for some reason, I'm bored to death with his company - which would never happen because John's always been good company. In any case, I'm looking around and notice this couple a few lines ahead of us and I randomly blurt out, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say those two were vampires." John looks at me like I'm insane, but the guy of the couple also looks straight at me when I say it. Then, he follows us around for the rest of our trip at the fair. Then, I "wake up" in my dream and I'm in my bed at my house that I share with my husband. As soon as I wake up, I know someone's watching me and I get incredibly frustrated. I go to the back door and open it to reveal 'vampire' guy on my porch. I say a few choice words to him and all he says the entire time is, "invite me in". The dream always ends like that - with no resolution.

Actually, my dreams (or clusters of dreams) always end with no resolution ... probably because I'm so indecisive in real life. ;)

Waiting on Wednesday

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.


The Iron Witch
by Karen Mahoney
Releases On February 1, 2011

Freak. That's what her classmates call seventeen-year-old Donna Underwood. When she was seven, a horrific fey attack killed her father and drove her mother mad. Donna's own nearly fatal injuries from the assault were fixed by magic—the iron tattoos branding her hands and arms. The child of alchemists, Donna feels cursed by the magical heritage that destroyed her parents and any chance she had for a normal life. The only thing that keeps her sane and grounded is her relationship with her best friend, Navin Sharma.

When the darkest outcasts of Faerie—the vicious wood elves—abduct Navin, Donna finally has to accept her role in the centuries old war between the humans and the fey. Assisted by Xan, a gorgeous half-fey dropout with secrets of his own, Donna races to save her friend—even if it means betraying everything her parents and the alchemist community fought to the death to protect.

Teaser Tuesdays!

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading.

· Grab your current read.
· Open to a random page.
· Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page.
· BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
· Share the author and title, too, so that the other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

Living Dead in Dallas (Southern Vampire Mysteries, Book 2), by Charlaine Harris

A short man was holding Gabe up in the air, not a man, I realized at second glance, a teenager. An ancient teenager.

He was blond and shirtless, and his arms and chest were covered in blue tattoos. Gabe was yelling and flailing, but the boy stood calmly, his fave expressionless, until Gabe ran down. By the time Gabe was silent, the boy had transferred his grip to a kind of bear hug encircling Gabe's waist, and Gabe was hanging forward.

30 Days of Insight: Day 09

It is now Day 09 of 30 Days of Insight, inspired by Lost in YA Wonderland. Today is:

Five things you want to see change.

01. Prejudice against anyone and everyone. This means stereotypes are gone, as well as the hatred and judgments. This also includes EVERYONE - gays, Christians, Muslims ... everyone!!

02. The way our assistance is being handled. By this I mean welfare, disability, social security, etc etc. I'm tired of seeing someone with five kids have WIC and then have a crapload of money for booze, cigarettes, big fancy cars and houses. I'm tired of seeing people who are capable of work get disability because of inane things like they stubbed their toe at work - all while there are veterans and people who actually need disability going without. I could rant about this for hours, but I'm not.

03. The way PETA spends their money. They can pay celebrities millions for endorsements, yet they're euthanizing all the animals they get as fast as they get them in. When does the money actually go to the animals they're supposed to be helping?

04. Celebrities. I just wish they'd shut their mouth and do what they get paid to do - which is act, sing, dance, sports ... whatever they're famous for. I also think they're all getting paid entirely too much for the little that they do.

05. Budget cuts for schools and libraries. Let's take away things that don't really matter ... like all the fancy corporate parties, and start putting more emphasis on children's educations. If you want a budget cut, how about the officials who get paid hundreds of thousands a year to sit on their arses and decide which jobs to axe - then complain about how nothing's getting done because they don't have enough workers.

30 Days of Insight: Day 08

It is now Day 08 of 30 Days of Insight, inspired by Lost in YA Wonderland. Today is:

Someone you think would make a good president.

Let's be honest: No matter who we put in office, they're going to screw up. Either on their own, or we're just going to nit-pick at every single error that they make. I don't think one person would make a good president. Why? Too many leaders behind-the-scenes directing and dictating the president's every move. It's a reason why I hate politics, too many unknowns.

So, with that, I'm going to go with the only person that I think would totally kick ass by just appearance alone:

Chuck Norris.

*PS: I can't think of a better answer. LOL