Hour 9

My parents were over for just over an hour, and then I finished a book. Just taking a quick break to throw in a load of laundry and try to get Charlemaigne finished. Or well, to be more accurate, closer to being finished. (I'm finally on disc 9 of 13.)

Reading: Charlemaigne...still. 

Books finished: 1 



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Total books finished: 2
"The Pirates! In An Adventure With Ahab" by Gideon DeFoe (154 pgs)
"Jim Henson's Return To Labyrinth Vol. 1" by Jake T. Forbes and Chris Lie (208 pgs)

Total time reading: 7 hrs 27 min - 5 hrs 57 min audiobook, 1 hr 53 min reading

Total pages read: 362

Total challenges participated in: 4     Hour 1 (introduction questionnaire), Hour 2 (books and music), Hour 3 (book cover/food challenge), Hour 4 (book spine poetry - see below)

Total blogs visited: 5

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I'll be hitting up "The School for Good and Evil" next (it's one that I really like a lot but haven't touched in a couple of months), and hopefully will have at least 1 load of laundry washed by the time I come back again. 

Hour 6

Less reading being done than I'd planned on, but oh well. I just ran a couple errands (to the post office and the pet store for some food for the kitties), refilled my bird feeders, and got a call from my parents that they're stopping over to cut the cats' nails in a few minutes. Necessary, to be sure, but here's hoping that it doesn't turn into a long visit. (No offense - I love when they come over - I just want to be reading a lot today!) 

Books reading: still listening to "Charlemaigne", and got a start on "The Pirates! and an Adventure with Ahab" by Gideon DeFoe

Time reading since last update:  1 hr 17 min (55 min audio, 23 min reading)

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Total books finished: 1 
"Jim Henson's Return To Labyrinth Vol. 1" by Jake T. Forbes and Chris Lie

Total time reading: 6 hrs 7 min - 5 hrs 37 min audiobook, 53 min reading

Total challenges participated in: 4     Hour 1 (introduction questionnaire), Hour 2 (books and music), Hour 3 (book cover/food challenge), Hour 4 (book spine poetry - see below)

Total blogs visited: 3

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Parents just pulled up (they brought me lunch - thanks!), so who knows how much reading will get done in the next hour - unless they don't mind listening to my audiobook?!? 

Hour 4

So far, so good. Getting some decent time in to my current audiobook, and I've managed to finish one whole book! (It's a manga, but still.)

Reading: Still listening to Charlemaigne Pursuit
Food: Coffee, water, bagel
Books finished: 1

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Total books finished: 1 
"Jim Henson's Return To Labyrinth Vol. 1" by Jake T. Forbes and Chris Lie

Total time reading: 4 hrs 50 min - 4 hrs 20 min audiobook, 30 min reading
(I started early, but I know that I'll need a break in a while so that extra 15 minutes will help deflect some of that time out.)

Total challenges participated in: 4     Hour 1 (introduction questionnaire), Hour 2 (books and music), Hour 3 (book cover/food challenge), Hour 4 (book spine poetry - see below)

Total blogs visited: 3

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BOOK SPINE POETRY

One of my favorite challenges every time, this time it's being posted/hosted by Capricious Reader. 

Companions along the way,
across the unknown,
the eyes of the killer robot glow

Hour 2 mini-challenge

This challenge is hosted by River City Reading. The challenge is to "choose a song that best suits what you're reading so far and explain why". 

Since I'm currently reading the first volume of "Jim Henson's Return to Labyrinth" manga, I can't seem to keep "Magic Dance" out of my head. The movie came out when I was 8, and I while I loved it, it also really scared me.  Enjoy the awesomeness (sorry about the weird slow-down-cocaine-reference in there) and revel in the awesomeness of Jim Henson, David Bowie, and the '80's!

Time to get to reading!

Good morning!  I don't know about you, but I slept terribly last night and have to idea how I'm upright right now. Thank GOD for coffee! I'm getting started this morning with an audiobook while I finish a few things that didn't get done last night (taking out the garbage, etc), and I'm looking forward to sitting down with a book in hand very soon!

Book I'm starting with: "The Charlemaigne Pursuit" by Steve Berry (I'm just about halfway through with this audiobook)

Food: So far, just coffee for me, but I might scramble a few eggs and toast a bagel too.

And, the beginning questionnaire....

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

My house outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

That's kind of a tough one. I think for now I'll say "The Pirates! In An Adventure With Ahab" by Gideon DeFoe. I really like the movie (which I think is a combination of all of the books, maybe?) and I'm hoping that the books are just as much fun.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Oooh, you know, I didn't really plan that well this time around. It's probably popcorn, though, since I've been on a kick lately.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

Probably nothing new to say since I've done a lot of these. How about chubby white girl who recently quit her third job in order to save whatever's left of her sanity?

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

Since I slept so badly, I think a nap or two will have to happen today, which is a little different. Last time I let myself fall asleep in the wee hours of the morning but I don't think I'll make it that far without getting a few minutes of sleep in. 

And now, since my cats are "starving" (code for 'we think the bottom of the bowl might be visible') and my coffee maker just beeped, I'd better get started on my day. 

Starting tomorrow...

I'll be here nearly all the time!  Starting at 7AM tomorrow I'll be reading for 24 hours once again (well, trying to read for that long at least)! 

I'm still working at my local library, which has been detrimental to reading my own books, and I've sadly worn out one tote bag so far with all of my hauling back and forth. I've got some books planned out that I want to read, but my other, MUCH larger, pile of TBRs will get a small workout too.

Here's the "planning on reading" pic:

From bottom to top:

"The Unsinkable Walter Bean" by Aaron Reiner

"Notorious Ninteen" by Janet Evanovich

"Marbles" by Ellen Forney

"Jim Henson's Return to Labyrinth, Vol. 1" by Jake T. Forbes and Chris Lie

"The Pirates! In An Adventure With Ahab" by Gideon DeFoe

"Living Dead in Dallas" by Charlaine Harris

And, the ones standing on their side and the audiobook on the top of the pile (ones I'm currently reading and hope to finish):

"The School for Good and Evil" by Soman Chainani

"The Charlemagne Pursuit" by Steve Berry

"And Another Thing: The World According to Clarson, V. 2" by Jeremy Clarkson

"Shadows at the Fair" by Lea Wait

(not pictured) "Moon Called" by Patricia Briggs

Aside from these, some of my TBR Soon books are two more books each in the Pirates! and Sookie Stackhouse series, a couple of ARCs from publishers, several YA's recommended by my co-workers and boss at the library, and hopefully a few ghost/haunted/spooky titles that will make their way onto my lap come Sunday morning.

For now, I'm going to make my lists (cleaning and shopping), run a couple of errands, and then head in to work this afternoon, where another book or 4 might come home with me. And, hopefully, I'll get to bed early so I can be up to start reading in plenty of time!

See you all soon!

Gearing up for this weekend

Hello, Lads & Lasses! 

Once again, it's just about time for another Dewey's 24-hour read-a-thon, and I'm so happy that I will have off for the whole weekend so I can read to my hearts' content and sleep as much as I want to. 

This past week I took a little time-out for myself, and went Up North with a good friend for a few days. We stayed at her in-law's cottage (hooray for free sleeping!), went ATVing for the first time ever (and took about a hundred photos and had too much fun), took a trip into Minocqua for some shopping, and basically just laid around and read and watched TV. It was a little difficult to get used to having "nothing" to do for more than a day, but as soon as it was time to start getting ready to go, I was totally relaxed and didn't want to leave. Always happens, right? 

The colors were just beautiful, and it smelled so fresh and campfire-y, I wish there was some way to bottle it up. Except for the first night when we could see so many stars and part of the Milky Way, it rained every night. Though on the second night it took a break and we went out to try and see if we could spot the Northern Lights. No such luck, but you could tell that if it wasn't cloudy we could've seen them. As it was, we could just see parts get a little lighter and then fade away again. Oh well - that just means that we'll have to go back and do it next year!

I managed to get 7 books read this week, so I feel like that's a little warm-up for what will hopefully be a higher count this coming weekend. The good news is that I already have a giant stack of books checked out from my library, so I'm crossing my fingers that I won't bring any more home between now and then. Photos of my book piles are forthcoming (one of my favorite parts of the pre 'thon events is checking out everyone else's books they want to read), and I'm already working on a food and snack list for the weekend too. 

Wish I didn't have to work this week (or any week, really), but it'll be nice to get back into the swing of things for a while.