What to expect when visitng my blog...

I would like to take a minute and share with you what to expect when looking over my blog. This page is an opportunity to share with others what I like to do in my spare time. These activities range from reading, which I need to do more of (have a mountain of books to conquer and I still buy more =)...) making my own greeting cards, ornaments and more.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Reviews to come

Here is a list of upcoming reviews that if all goes accordingly will be posted by weekends end. But we all know how sometimes life has different plans...lol.
so here goes.
1. Another Faust
2. Cracked Up To Be (Looking to pass this book on to someone. First person to email me at bgale11@aol.com will get the book).
3. Pale Assassin

Thursday, October 8, 2009

My Biggest Regret by Dina Nayeri (Guest post and co-author of Another Faust)

My Biggest Regret
by Dina

I suspect there are a lot of high school and college students reading this post, so I'll talk about one of the things I wish I had known when I was starting college. It doesn't matter one bit to your future career what major you choose in college. You can study whatever you like, anything that sparks your passion, and still take a job in business or fashion or writing or...Well, pretty much anything.

I know this sounds like a big lie, but I spend a lot of time doing admissions advising and career advising and I can tell you without a shred of doubt that, if you are attending a liberal arts college, you can choose to study any subject and you can still go into any unrelated field.

Of course, there are a few caveats:

1) Pre-med, Pre-law, and pre-anything do not count as "majors." These are supplementary credits that you have to achieve if you want to go into those fields. But it's very possible to be pre-med and an Art History major at the same time.

2) You'll have to do some extra work (write a better resume, do more internships, conduct more research) if you want to study, say, Sanskrit and then go into, say, business.

3) You might have to go to graduate school. If you follow your passion of studying Russian Literature and then decide to be a vet, yeah, you'll need more school, and you'll need to convince that school that you're serious. But that's not a hard thing to do. And hey, you will be a much more interesting person than a vet who doesn't know anything about Russian literature!

3) Your dad will tell you that everything I'm saying is crap. That's because he is risk averse and he doesn't want to pay for your grad school.

My biggest college regret (besides that time I wore white underwear under a black dress and took like a thousand photos) is that I didn't major in English. At the time I wanted to go into the business world and I thought the only way to get there was to major in Economics. So I did. Granted, I took a ton of English classes at the same time. But I wish I had taken more!
I wish I had written my thesis in English and joined like a dozen reading groups! Now, looking back, I realize that the company I wanted to work for hired students from all types of majors. Preparing for the interview wouldn't have been much harder and I could have still gone to business school. Sure, I still became a writer. But that's not the point. What about those four glorious years that could have been spent reading Rushdie and Chabon and writing poems instead of calculating internal rates of return?

Back in the swing of things.

Hello everyone,
Back from vaca and I am now back in the swing of things. Need a vacation from my vacation. Anywho to start things off I have a guest post from one of the co authors of Another Faust. Another Faust was a great book and my review of that will be posted shortly. But to get things off the guest post.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Day 3 in Florida

Hello again.
Day 3 started with poor Julia getting sick. Julia hung back with Heather and the rest of us went to Epcot. Started off with the ride in the great big ball (can't think of the name right now). Anywho you start by pushing the place where you live... Marcus was with my mom and i and we ended up being from Louisville Kentucky..lol From there we went on a ride called Soarin where you feel like you are flying and you get to see the sites of California. This ride was amazing. And at each location where they show you you can smell the scene, for example they showed us orange trees you could smell oranges, surfers you could smell the salt water. Definitely a ride you must check out if ever in Epcot. After Soarin some went on test track while others waited and Marcus and Josh played in the water.

After the water play Jason, Josh, Meghan, Hannah and I went on Mission to Mars. My loving brother that he is choose the more intense ride. This ride was equipped with barf bags. Ahhh.... that right there should have been a warning. lol The ride itself was great but there were times that I was not feeling to well with the ride. But we all made it off. After that the family all went on the Figment ride. Another nice ride. went on later with Marcus as he was asleep the first time around. After that ride we headed over to a large disney store and shopped til our dinner reservation.

At dinner we got to see Mickey, Pluto, Chip and Dale. We also had our own show with Marcus. He danced and sang for us while we were all eating. Marcus loved the characters. Night ended with the girls and I going back to the hotel. Today we are heading over to Disney Hollywood Studios.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Day 2 in Florida

Hello everyone,

Day 2 found us getting up real early to catch a bus to have breakfast with the Characters at Animal kingdom. All in good spirits this am. Dad had a scooter delivered to him last night so he wouldn't have to do the walking and it was a new toy for him. While getting on the bus to Animal Kingdom Dad put on a show for everyone waiting as the scooter didn't want to work and then would speed off at the touch of a button. He almost ran over the two employees helping him.... Once secured on the bus we were off to Animal Kingdom. There we had Breakfast at Tusker Restaurant. It was a buffet style breakfast and it was delicious. They served this juice called jamba juice and it was mango, papaya and some other juice mix it was really good. The characters at this breakfast were Goofy, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Daisy Duck, and Donald Duck. The kids all loved them and well if any of you know me I went for Goofy. lol.

After breakfast we all went on the safari ride. which was very enjoyable. Then the some of the gang went on a rapid ride and was soaking wet afterwards.

Hannah and I jetted out early from the park to come back to the hotel to find the rug by the bathroom torn up. Here is the story as to why that came to be and why we call our old room Lake 721.

Upon checking into the hotel and getting to our room we noticed the rug in front of the bathroom was sopping wet. Called the front desk and they sent out someone to use a wet vac to soak up the water and told us that the rug should be fine. So we went to bed woke up this morning at four am and stepped on to the floor to find that the floor was still sopping wet. Not my idea of a nice wake up call. So I stopped at the front desk and told them. While out at Animal Kingdom they sent someone over to take care of it. Upon arriving back at the hotel we found the rug torn up in two locations. And three people stopping in at the room to apologise and figure out what was leaking. But as it is we have moved to another room in another building away from the rest of the family. Pictures will be posted later tonight.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Photos from first day in Florida








Family Florida Vacation Day one



Okay so we all landed safely yesterday, checked into the hotel and relaxed. While relaxing at the hotel I came to realize I had forgotten one important piece of equipment... my cell phone charger... not a good thing as I watch my battery life drain. As many of you know my cell phone is a life line to the outside world and my friends. One can often find me texting people to stay in touch. So far I have had to have my phone off more then it is on. Not a fun thing for me. This morning began at 7:30am with breakfast at the food court at the hotel where I decided I was going to see if my wonderful friend taking care of my cat could overnight my cell phone charger. So when it got later in the morning and we are at Magic Kingdom I called her and she is the best she said she would do it for me. (Jen you rock) with that crisis almost resolved on to the rest of the day.

Day one: Magic Kingdom and Dinner at the Wilderness lodge.
We arrived at Magic Kingdom before it opened so we were able to catch the morning show they put on to open the park. It was cute. Once in the park we went to the rides. My two nieces and I began with the ride snow whites scary adventure. Scary for one niece not for the other. Then we decided to split from the family for a little while. The two girls and i made our way to frontier land on the way stopping to go on It's a Small World and Haunted Mansion.

Entering into frontier land the girls went on Thunder mountain and Splash mountain. Got to chat with a very nice employee there while waiting for the rest of the family to show up as that is where they said they were coming next. However, that all changed and the girls and I had to venture over to Tomorrowland to meet up with the group.

We ended our day with dinner at the Wilderness Lodge where the waiters were hysterical. they began by throwing straws on the table and napkins. Ten minutes into dinner we all had to get up and do the hokey pokey. As they were having us stand up my dad was finishing his salad and the waiter came over and shouted "put the fork down the food isn't going anywhere." After that one of my nieces asked for ketchup and the table that had it last brought over about 20 bottles of ketchup to our table which we then had to deliver to the next table that asked for ketchup. Also during this meal the younger kids got to go on a horse ride using the wooden horse head on a stick. It was a great evening and a fun evening which helped lift the spirits of my family as we were all getting tired and cranky. Yes I know only day one and we were already cranky can you imagine day 7...lol.

Florida Vacation

Hello everyone,
I know this isn't really a book review or book related topic but I felt the need to share the adventures that will be had while on vacation with my entire family. All 14 of us. So let's begin
first day was yesterday we began by arriving at the airport at 12:30pm for a 3pm flight. Early yes I know but the statement I got from the parental unit (father) was you don't know how much traffic we will hit on the way there and we need to be there 2 hours before the flight. so we arrived and waited for the plane.






Friday, September 18, 2009

News

Okay folks as my vacation trip draws closer I need to decide how many books to bring with me.
One I am bringing is Pale Assassin as it is an early reviewer and I must finish it and review it this month. But how many more should I bring? Here are the books I have in mind. And as My friend Gail did I am going to ask you to vote on which books you think I should bring with me. The two with the highest votes will go with me.

The hollow by Jessica Verday
Faerie Path by Frewin Jones
Staked by J.F. Lewis
Never slow dance with a Zombie
Ghost huntress book 2

And of course my e reader "Gavin" will be joining me on this vaca.



And for those of you who don't know I am going with my entire family. Should be an adventure. So as part of this trip I will be posting stories each day (hopefully) on the events of that day.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

List of books to be given away

Okay everyone,
here is the start of the list of books I will be giving away.
A signed copy of Gray Apocalypse by James Murdoch
Pure Heart by Rita Hsu Syers
Vampire Beach Blood Lust by Alex Duval
first four books in the sookie stackhouse series
dead until dark
living dead in dallas
club dead
dead to the world
(the others will be available as I finish reading them)

Cracked up to be by courtney summers
Wicked Lovely by mellissa marr
Handcuffs by Bethany Griffin
The astonishing adventures of fan boy and goth girl by barry lyga

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The winner is

Hey Everyone,
Sorry about the delay worked later then I planned. The winner for the Hush Hush giveaway is
The Book Vixen. Thank you all for entering. Wish you all could have won. Stay tuned for more giveaways to come.