Happy Turkey Day 2009

Hope these wild Texas turkeys escaped the hunters. (I have a feeling that's why they were hiding out in our neighborhood!)

I hope my US readers are enjoying the holiday and that we can all take time today to think of the things we're grateful for in our lives.

Thankfulness

This Thursday is Thanksgiving in the US, so family travel plans are well underway for us.

I thought I was a pretty thankful person, so the idea of posting a month's worth of Twitter updates and Facebook statuses describing things I was thankful for seemed like an easy way to spread the celebration over the whole month.

After 23 days of the month, I'm at about a 20% success rate. If 50% is failing, 20% is what? dismal? I guess this is a good reminder to me that maintaining an attitude of gratitude is difficult, even when I know that I have many many things to be thankful for. It's so much easier to focus on things that need to get done or are wrong. Of course I need to focus on those things to be productive, but I also need to focus on gratitude to be peaceful.

Whether you're celebrating Thanksgiving this week or not, here's hoping we can all stop for a minute and think of a few more things we're grateful for today.

Unacceptable Behavior

Dear Front Flower Garden,

I believed in you. I listened to the local hardware store people when they said October was time to plant fall bulbs for spring flowers. I special ordered crocus, hyacinths, daffodils and more. I measured the depth of the holes with a tape-measure and little bulb-diggy thing.

What did I get for my trouble?


Hmmm... looks to me like it's still November. And yet...


Now, I know we've been having highs in the mid-70s ever since you were planted, but that's just West Texas. It's no excuse for this type of behavior. Because, tonight... freezing temps.


Say goodbye to my spring garden. Guess it's store-bought daffodils again for 2010...sniff.

Christmas Reading Challenge

I'm just now finishing up my first reading challenge over at Royal Reviews (only 6 months late!), so figured it was a perfect time to participate in another one. Michelle over at The True Book Addict is hosting her first book challenge -- a Christmas Reading Challenge.

The Christmas Reading Challenge:

• will run from Thanksgiving Day, November 26 through New Year's Eve, December 31, 2009
• you can choose 1 - 3 books...I know it seems a small amount, but it's a busy time of year and the challenge is only a little over a month.
• These must be Christmas novels, books about Christmas lore or a book of Christmas short stories (sorry, no children's books, but YA novel is okay).
• Be sure to check back here in a couple of days, I will have a list of new Christmas books coming out and some old favorites to recommend.
• Be sure to come back and link your post here on Mr. Linky. This is my first time using it so if it doesn't work, leave your link in the comments. Please leave a comment after you post your link in Mr. Linky. Thanks!

This is right up my alley. In fact, I even have my first two books picked out: The Christmas Cookie Club and A Christmas Carol (Special Edition). Thank you to Michelle for hosting this challenge and to Diane at The Book Resort for letting me know about it.

The challenge starts a week from today!

Backyard Butterfly Migration

Check out my quilt-y travel gear over at TexasRed Quilts. The WW headquarters is here: Wordless Wednesday.

Teaser Tuesday - The Riders of High Rock

Teaser Tuesdays are hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

It asks us to:

(1) Grab our current reads.

(2) Let the book fall open to a random page.

(3) Share two (or three) teaser sentences from that page somewhere between lines 7 and 12 (avoiding spoilers).

We're also supposed to share the book title and author so others can find the book themselves.

Here's my teaser for today from The Riders of High Rock, by Louis L'Amour:

I like to see a real appetite, not one of these picky kind of fellers who muddle over their grup and never eat up. Never seen a cowhand nor any kind of workin' or fightin' man who ever left grub on his plate!

Happy eating!

Dear Past, Present, and Future Me

This is something that has been going around blog circles for a few years. I was tagged to put in my "letters" by Stephanie over at No One Can Own Your Soul. At the end, I have linked to some other bloggers because I would like to see their spin on it. I hope you will read them and enjoy them as much as I do!

Dear Past Me,

You don't need to worry about so many things. You're going to be ok. The older you get, the more opportunities you'll have to meet people like you. Eventually, you'll get pretty good at identifying your "tribe." When you find the right people, they'll be comfortable with you being yourself. You'll actually get weirder but feel less alone. I promise.

Keep looking for people who are more outgoing than you are. They appreciate your ability to listen well and will drag you out of your comfort zone into places and adventures you'd never have had on your own. Look for people, too, that challenge you to be better than you are. It's the best motivation you have to grow -- intellectually, emotionally, spiritually.

Dear Present Me,

You need to breathe - especially when it feels like things are out of control. Despite how it appears, the world can wait for 30 minutes in the morning while you do yoga. It can wait for you to re-read e-mails before they're sent. It can wait while you take a bathroom break every once in awhile. Don't believe me? Ask the prairie dog.

You need to keep trying to find the balance between working with the world as it is, and trying to find better options. You're not going to get the balance right, but you're also not going to see things change the ways you would like them to unless you put in the time to try new things. Take deep breaths and keep going. You've got lots of projects you're working on and none of them will be quick or easy. You need to take care of yourself so that you're ready when an opportunity does break through.

Dear Future Me,

I know the future is full of its own challenges. Hopefully we prepared for some of those today. Did the West Texas gardening trials help? Is the cooking thing all smoothed out? Hopefully by now you've got several kids and a ranch in the works -- at least that's what I'm praying for (and trying to prepare for) today.

I hope you've kept several of your passions alive. I hope you're still writing and quilting. I hope you've put together a local support network to rival the world-wide girlfriend network you have today. I hope that you haven't had to organize anyone's funeral yet, but that if you do, the issues you thought about in 2009 were helpful. I hope you're still doing your best to be an encourager and peacemaker and take care of the people in your family.

Not such an easy meme, really. I'm tagging these people to write their own letters:

• LJ at The Gypsy Mama
• Dawn at KaiserMommy
• Tokemise at By Hook or By Book
• Kat at Sassy Irish Lassie
• Janie at Sounding Forth
• James at The Sky's The Limit

but if you're not listed, please feel free to try your hand and let me know what your letters are like.

Moonstone by Marilee Brothers

I thought Moonstone, by Marilee Brothers, was a good choice for a Friday the 13th. (It's young adult and about my level of spooky -- which is to say, not much.)

Plot Summary: Fifteen-year-old Allie Emerson doesn't live a glamorous life. She spends most of her time surviving school and taking care of her mom, who has fibromyalgia, in the small town of Peacock Flats, Washington.

True to the rest of her life, she doesn't get her powers in a glamorous fashion, either. She's struck by an electrical bolt while adjusting the TV antenna on her mother's 24-foot trailer set up behind her uncle's house. Between her guardian angel, Trilby, and neighbor, Kizzy, Allie begins to find out about her powers and the "star seekers" and their fight against evil. The mystical moonstone necklace Kizzy gives Allie (which she says she's been holding for her) is part of the puzzle.

Allie's education in the mystic gets an unexpected jump-start, however, when Kizzy is attacked and Allie and her friends must decide who's responsible... and who they can trust.

My Reaction: This is the first novel, and first in the Unbidden Magic series, from author Marilee Brothers. I thought the descriptions about high school life were really believable (probably drawn from Marilee's experience as a high school teacher). And loved Allie's running commentary throughout the book.

My favorite thing about this story, though, was how Marilee played with the idea of getting powers and using them in a "normal" life. Allie's life didn't become a fairy-tale when she developed powers. The book wasn't full of people who were rich and elegant. I really appreciated this story of how a teen could deal with her real-life problems with the added complexity of a mystical destiny. Plus -- this book was lots of fun!

Bottom Line: Marilee's website is www.marileebrothers.com and she's on Twitter as @MarileeB. I'm writing now to ask for the next book in the series, Moon Rise!

Fall Behind

Today I should be posting a book review. That was my goal for Thursdays and Fridays -- on the schedule in my head. It hasn't happened in awhile (which you've probably noticed) and won't be happening today.

With all the family travel and events since the end of September, I've been falling further and further behind. I have a mountain of books on my nightstand, including several fantastic-looking ARCs. Eventually, I'll get to the point of telling you all about them. At the moment, though, I'm back in that spiral of not knowing if the situations around me causing stress are also causing me not to read or if the not reading is causing stress on its own.

Anyway, I'm thankful for the chance to spend time with family and for having the flexibility to be away for awhile. I'm working the yoga DVDs again, taking deep breaths, and starting to work my way through the bedside mountain. I'll have more reviews to post for you soon. Promise.

Holiday Events for Book Bloggers!

It's time for the Book Blogger Holiday Swap!

This is an annual event and is hosted by Lenore, Jill, Eva, Debi, Chris, Ana, Amy, and Amanda. Book bloggers sign up to get a secret Santa for the holidays -- small gifts only, books encouraged.

Sign up is due by tomorrow -- November 12, 2009, so go check out the FAQ page. You can also follow this conversation on Twitter by following @holidayswap.

If you're thinking about the holidays, you can also pledge to buy books for the holidays. You can follow that conversation on Twitter by following @books4holidays. Good fun all around!

Teaser Tuesday - The Trail to Seven Pines

Back from the whirl-wind road trip and now trying to get everything back to "normal." It'll still take me awhile to catch up on blog reading, posting, twitter, etc. (not to mention the laundry and finding homes for the suitcases)! Here's today's TT, though, which is a good start.

Teaser Tuesdays are hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

It asks us to:

(1) Grab our current reads.

(2) Let the book fall open to a random page.

(3) Share two (or three) teaser sentences from that page somewhere between lines 7 and 12 (avoiding spoilers).

We're also supposed to share the book title and author so others can find the book themselves.

Here's my teaser for today from The Trail to Seven Pines, by Louis L'Amour:

'That was a surprise,' he said aloud. 'I'd have made the same mistake Windy did. The Kid's got sand, and he's more than half gun-slick."

I'm learning a whole new language to read my husband's westerns. Fortunately for me, he's a good translator!

Nesting Instinct Decoded

In my head, Hoover (our pet prairie dog) is quite chatty. Here's the inner monologue for yesterday's series of pictures:

Need more bedding. Need this. Need!

Seriously. Winter's coming. Gonna get cold. Why won't this all fit in my mouth?

Dude. Don't bogart the cardigan! I need it!

What'd I do?

Don't worry. Mr. Fur Coat will have plenty of warmth for this winter -- just not from my sweater. Check out more Tell Me Thursdays, too!

Nesting Instinct

Check out my quilt-y travel gear over at TexasRed Quilts. The WW headquarters is here: Wordless Wednesday.

Teaser Tuesday - Across the Endless River - Part 2

Teaser Tuesdays are hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

It asks us to:

(1) Grab our current reads.

(2) Let the book fall open to a random page.

(3) Share two (or three) teaser sentences from that page somewhere between lines 7 and 12 (avoiding spoilers).

We're also supposed to share the book title and author so others can find the book themselves.

Here's my teaser for today from Across the Endless River, by Thad Carhart:

Baptiste's first few days in Paris were like a waking dream. Anticipation, excitement, doubt, and wonder flooded his mind as he looked around him. He had feld this way only once before, when his parents left him in St. Louis with Captain Clark, but his surroundings there had be understandable, if not entirely familiar, Here, nothing in his life prepared him for what he found in this vast city.

I know it's week 2 of teasers from the same book. Things have been a little crazy here. Getting ready to head back to California -- another driving trip -- tomorrow. This time for a family member's memorial service. I'll be back (and back up to normal) as soon as I can.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks

After reading her blog for the last 3 years or so and meeting her in Chicago, I now have The Pioneer Woman in my own home -- well, her cookbook at least.

This arrived over the weekend and it took everything I had to focus on trick-or-treaters and not immediately start planning meals out of this beauty (or at least admiring the pictures of her kids and enjoying the funny stories). I had pre-ordered this on Amazon & almost forgotten that it was coming out at the end of October.

So excited!