The Country Project...

My Facebook Status Tonight:

I am going to write a new book called, "The Country Project, Or why I spent a year trying to countrify myself, silly stories of a suburbanite gone country, and tales of apple orchards, country music, trucks, bon fires and square dancing." We have a close date!!!!! :-)

You've probably noticed I haven't been posting as much since I am up to my ears in boxes. I do like my book idea, for those of you that haven't read it or don't know about it yet, it is a spoof on the already existing book called "The Happiness Project, Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun." This incidentally is a really good book that my book club read.

Gotta run to pack more boxes the country is calling....

Need a Good Read????

Book Talk Time

January 2012:

The Hunger Games (Book Club Book)

Wicked Appetite (Had a head start on this in Dec.)

What Got You Here, Won't Get You There (Had a head start on this in Dec.)
How To Make Money Using Etsy

 

So as you can see I read The Hunger Games (Book Club Book) and LOVED it!!!! My book club had a GREAT discussion on this book, it sparked a lot of thought. I highly recommend it, there is a reason it has been on the best seller list for what seems like forever! What struck me about this book was that the author did a great job building the plot, characters and making it believeable. The believeable aspect was something I really liked about this book, since I prefer to read non-fiction. Wicked Appetite is still on my Kindle and for some reason I just haven't picked it back up. I reviewed What Got You Here, Won't Get You There and you can see my review here. I still want to read How To Make Money Using Etsy. I had it checked out but had to take it back to the library. I am going to start fresh in February and attempt my Feb. list. I'll update you again at the end of Feb. so you can see how I did.

 

I am looking forward to reading these in
February:

Keys To Success The 17 Principles of Personal Achievement

The Help (want to read because so many of my friends have said this is a great book!)

They Don't Teach Corporate In College

My book club has chosen The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean. This is a "What if all of Rochester read the same book?" book. The author is coming to town and our book club is registering to meet with her and to listen to her talk about the book.

(You can click on any of the above titles and you will be taken to Amazon.com where you can read more about each one.)

Books I Plan to Read in 2012

Happy New Year Everyone!

Each month I am picking a few books that I would like to read, some are fun, some are for professional development and some will be for my Book Club. Enjoy! This was SO fun to come up with this list. I basically went "shopping" on Amazon.com and picked books that interested me. I am always open for suggestions for good books to read, so please comment. If you want to read more info. on any of these, I linked each one to the amazon for you :-) Happy Reading, so many books, so little time!

January 2012:

The Hunger Games (Book Club Book)

Wicked Appetite (Had a head start on this in Dec.)

What Got You Here, Won't Get You There (Had a head start on this in Dec.)

How To Make Money Using Etsy

February:

Keys To Success The 17 Principles of Personal Achievement

The Help

They Don't Teach Corporate In College

March:

Steve Job's Biography

Twenty Life Transforming Choices Adoptees Need To Make


April:

Parenting With Love And Logic

Time Management In An Instant

May:

Simplicity Parenting

Getting Things Done

June:

Playful Parenting

The Art of Racing In The Rain

Since I am in a book club, I do not know what the book of the month will be until that month. So I will update you as I go along. At the Jan. meeting I will know the Feb. book and in Feb. I will know the March book and so on. Half way through the year I will update July - December. One more to mention, I am also reading, along with my MOMS group at my church The Power of A Praying Parent. We are reading it from Jan. through June.

The other nice thing about having a plan for reading is that it gives me time to get ahold of the books, since I do not own all of these. In Jan. I can put the books on hold that I need for Feb. and so on. I am already looking forward to planning my June - December reading!

Birthday Festivities.....

On Thursday night I had thrown myself a birthday party. I had some girlfriends come over and we did a make up make over with my friend whom does Mary Kay. Then we went to my favorite restaurant of all time Proietti's. Then we came back to my house to sit in my hot tub.

My before shot above which I kinda like, it is hard for me to smile without teeth! :-) Below is my after shot. I went for the "Dramatic" makeup look. It is definitely a bit more than I would ever do but it was fun. Everyone looked really good!!!

Here is a picture of all of us! Look at those fabulous faces! That is me bottom right. The girls surprised me with paying for my dinner!!!!
OK something happened when we got to the restaurant but NO I wasn't parked illegally it just looked like it.

Then last night I went out with the girls again, we saw Mama Mia and closed down Starbucks. I thought Mama Mia the movie was good, however I also saw the show in Toronto which I LOVED!

I also went to Starbucks last Tuesday night with my book club and closed down Starbucks. So I got to get out THREE times in one week with the girls!!!! Wahooo.

Tomorrow is my real birthday and we are going to our land. It has definitely been a great Birthday week. Thanks for all of my cards and well wishes. Stac you get the award for the funniest card!

Plus I got a KICKIN' B-DAY present from Dear Hubby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stay tuned and I will tell you more in an upcoming blogpost.

Back from Mystic Conn.

Right before we left a package came in the mail from Ashley's Nana!
I took a ton of photos about the ship the Charles W. Morgan, one because I have an interest and two for my Book Club since I picked a book by Nataniel Philbrick called In The Heart of The Sea, he also wrote The Mayflower.
This ship also refeered to as "The Morgan" is the ONLY whaling ship left today.
In the 80's as if you couldn't figure that one out from the dress, they started to restore The Morgan. Today she sits at Mystic Seaport. I have a ton more pics of when I was on her too. In November they will actually be lifting the whole ship out of the water to restore the hull. I told John I wish we could see them do that.
This weather vane just spoke to me!!!!!

Super Bowl Sunday and Meet The Spartans

Our neighbors threw a nice Super Bowl Party last night. They made a cake that was in the shape of a football field and had a "play" on it, made out of M&Ms and the field goal posts were made out of Twizzlers -very cute. Come to think of it I should have taken a picture of it for my blog. We were having a lot of fun at the party but I had to leave early to put A. to bed. I think she crashed around 8:30 pm after a VERY busy day for her. I managed to watch the last few minutes of the Super Bowl and I had a great time watching it, it was fun and exciting, the Giants made a last touch down and it was really exciting. That was the most football I've watched all season but I am glad I saw it. After all I do live in NY and the Giants are from NY so why not cheer for the underdogs that gave the upset! :-) As a mater of fact when I had a piece of that cake I ate the Giants blue endzone piece and my neighbor, Jason asked me if that was because I was routeing for them, well I guess that was the case. :-) Oh I should also mention at the party I had my first experience playing with a Wii - very fun I might add!

On Saturday a friend of mine watched A. in the am and well that was supposed to be Mommy time and I had it all planned out - go to JoAnn's and do the shopping for some projects I have planned, well we all know what happens to the best laid plans right! So DH ended up joining me on my time, because his truck was at the dealership, so we decided to see what was playing at 10:30am (instead of me dragging him to JoAnn's where we both probably would have been miserable) It turns out that Meet The Spartans was playing (Barb, where is Jay when I need him? :-) It is a spoof on the movie 300 which John just watched with his friend Jay. So I didn't know this going in and a few minutes in John tells me this. Now I hadn't seen 300 but that didn't matter. I actually really liked this movie and found it funny and entertaining, it is stupid humor and the kind of movie that you sit there and say "Am I really watching this?" John and I both agreed they must have had a ton of fun making this movie, I enjoyed the references to American Idol, Dancing with the Stars and a Paris Hilton spoof where she calls Nicole and Nicole says I had an almond to eat today and Paris informs her that she is done eating for the day then. Oh boy!

Into The Wild

My Book pick for this vacation is:
Into The Wild this book has really been keeping my attention, it is a very interesting read. Most people know that the guy dies and I like how the author doesn't try to hide that fact right off of the bat, instead he does just the opposite. I highly recommend this book and I can't wait to see the movie after I read the book. The craftcast lady talks about the movie in one of her podcasts, she is so funny, she says something to the effect of thinking about going into the wild and taking her wireless laptop with her!!!! I think a lot of us can relate to that! Click on this link to go to the movie website: http://www.intothewild.com/ Click on this link to go to CraftCast: http://www.craftcast.com/ It is her Oct. 16, 2007 podcast where she talks to Wendy Rosen, in which she initially talks about the movie.