Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon

I'm going to be participating in my first readathon ever with Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon next Saturday.  It starts at seven AM for me so I'm taking that as a good sign I can do it.  If it had started late at night or too early in the morning I wouldn't have been able to stay away for it and would have been demotivated.
I've already got a small stack of books that I think are doable for it.  I have a classic, a Newbery book, a book that's been on my shelf awhile and a book I want to read just because.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
The Beach House by Jane Green
Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson

If I don't have Moby-Dick done by then (which I probably won't since I'm only 300 pages in right now) and I finish these four then I'm going to spend the rest of my time working on that beast.

Getting three of these books (minus Winn-Dixie since it belongs to my girls) out of my bookcase and into my rummage sale pile makes me very excited!

Boo by Neil Smith *review*

I won Boo by Neil Smith through a Goodreads giveaway a few weeks ago and after a rough start I pretty much zoomed through the rest.

This book is beautiful.  I love the colors and how the picture ties into the story. And the inside flap was also a nice surprise.

Each chapter is numbered according to the periodic table and while I think the author took used numerous numbers at once just to advance us closer to the 106 number, I was really glad to see a different way of using the chapters.

To be honest I must have only skimmed through the summary before I entered the contest because I assumed this was going to have a bit more of a horror element in it based on the title, the creepy cover and the fact that it's about a dead boy.  When I read the first 50 or so pages I was so confused as to what I was actually reading that I got on Goodreads to read some of the reviews already posted.  A lot of them mention that this book is similar to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and my heart sunk a little because I really didn't enjoy that book.  After I made it through the introductory part of the book the pace picked up a little and I wasn't quite so leery of it.

Boo is a thirteen year old boy who believes he died of a medical condition and wakes up in a surreal form of heaven where everyone who dies is divided by their age and country.  While this is an interesting and new take on heaven, I'm a little confused as to what happens if you're a newborn baby that dies.  Boo makes it a point to explain that life in heaven is pretty much the same as on Earth where you need to eat and can be hurt (even though you heal quicker).  Even though you exist in this version of heaven for fifty years you may grow wiser but your body never ages so can you imagine living for fifty years in the body of a two year old?  I think that up to at least age six or seven it would be impossible for these rules to apply and I wish that had been explained.

Johnny was my favorite character because you could tell he kept an enormous amount of secrets close to his heart.  A part of me thinks that he might have had a little bit of a crush on Boo back in their real lives and I am completely on board with that because it explains why he does everything that he does for him throughout the book.  Even though he arrives at heaven five weeks later than Boo he quickly turns into the leader of their little group and tries to protect Boo and build up his confidence.  He smirked a lot, though.  Pretty much every chapter had someone smirking and it was almost always Johnny.

A book with an autistic narrator is interesting and I'm glad we didn't have the same boring old character like 99% of other YA novels.  On the other hand, autism is very clinical and matter of fact and I feel like it was hard to connect with Boo through most of the book.  It wasn't until towards the end that we kind of cracked his shell and got to really feel for him. 

The side characters were all colorful and full of personality and once again, extremely glad that Smith included so many different types of people.  We had a girl with dwarfism, an African-American and another African-American who suffered from vitiligo. 

The twist in the middle of the book was easily read from a mile away but I loved how the twist slowly unraveled the further you read and up until the very end you were still confused as to what actually happened. 

Boo and the portal was a little bit of a deus ex machina and I didn't enjoy that part much.  Too much had changed and it was a little jarring to have him out in the real world even if it was for only a chapter.

Overall I enjoyed this book and I'm glad I got the chance to read and review it even if it wasn't what I was expecting. 

3/5 stars

My Insta Life

Have I mentioned I love Instagram?  I have?  A couple of times?  Oops.
I go back and forth on having a Facebook (I've been deactivated for two weeks and loving every second!) so it's nice to have a page that I can post pictures of things that make me smile and not have to deal with drama, drama, drama every second.

For example, I can ask my kids to clean out their bookcases because every dollar we make selling junk this year is going into our Disney World Food Fund.
Look at how many they got rid of in one afternoon!  And it didn't even make a dent in their bookcases.  We have an addiction.

I can take part in the CleanHouse2k15 program myself and fill the back of my living room up with junk, junk and more junk.
This was another long afternoon spent cleaning.  As you can see there are even more books in this pile.  Honestly this pile goes out to the shed every few weeks and it's only a matter of days before it's this high again.  Where is all the stuff coming from?  Surely I will start seeing my floor any day now, right?

My most-posted pictures are of books (I told you we are addicted).  I love seeing pictures of other people's current reads so I just throw mine out there as well.
I finished The Three Musketeers last month, a long-running TBR of mine.  It wasn't the best book ever but I passed many a beautiful afternoon relaxing at the table with this book and a hot cup of coffee.

Speaking of books (aren't we always speaking of books over here?), I recently won a box of books from the amazing blog Jump Into a Book and was so excited to come home from work and see it sitting on my front steps.
We haven't read them yet because right now Bug is only letting me read Little House on the Prairie to her, but they are in our book basket and a full review will come once we finish off the second book in the Little House series.

Another book I've recently received was the absolutely amazing Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian.  I won this in a Goodread's giveaway and could not put it down.  Please, please if you're looking for a new book to read do yourself a favor and look this one up.

And lastly, another thing I enjoy sharing are pictures of my zoo.  Minus the kids.  I don't really post my girls.  But my BOY.  He gets featured quite regularly.  I love you, sweet man.

Insta Love

I love Instagram.  Seeing pictures of books or coffee or nature relaxes me and I look forward to waking up in the morning and scrolling through all the new posts.  Most of mine are books and food but that's what interests me the most so it's all I enjoy taking pictures of!


After I posted a picture of the beautiful Puffin chalk covers my sister-in-law got me some for Christmas!

My signed copy of Burned that I had been waiting what felt like a CENTURY for!

 It was Bug's eighth birthday and she wanted momma to make cookies for her entire class.  My baby girl is not normally a fan of sweets.  Plain sugar was her choice.

My library is great at ordering books for me and when I saw this gorgeous book I absolutely had to see it in person.  It had the best illustrations I've seen in ages.  I would proudly put prints of this all over my wall.

Free books I picked up in my library bookstore.  I won a $10 worth of free books from a giveaway and I've gotten so many great ones so far.

Kracie Popin' Cookin'

Goose received a box of Kracie Popin' Cookin' sets for Christmas and it was her favorite gift this year.  She's been asking for them for months now.  There were ten different sets and she's been burning through them since she got them.

First up was the ice cream cones.  These actually didn't taste that bad but the strawberry flavor was a little medicine-like.  We all four got our own and she watched each of us individually to make sure we ate the entire thing.

Donuts were a little more involved and it was a fun little 30 minute project one morning.  While a gummy donut doesn't sound very appetizing I was still able to swallow it down relatively easy.

That was where the decent tasting kits ended.  And it all was because of hamburger day.  Imagine chewing a gum that tastes like a hamburger.  These were cute as could be and she absolutely adores making them but the taste was so bad that none of us could eat ours.

 

This little cake took her ages to decorate and she plated it up and presented it to us so proudly.  I love her little creative heart!

We're all out of the kits and she's already asking if she can get another box for next Christmas!

Saving Money Step by Step

Our big plan to be debt free in the next few years is starting with a bang in 2015!  After dropping down a level with our satellite provider and cancelling Netflix we are already saving almost $200 in the next year.  It might not be a life-changing chunk of change but it's only the start and we have a few other ideas up our sleeves still!
Bug had a much-needed surgery this past September and unfortunately our insurance provider never informed us that even though her doctor was in-network (as listed on their website) the office he does his surgeries out of is NOT in-network.  So after a crying phone call only to listen to them tsk tsk at me and say I should have known to check about the office (which, excuse my language, is bullshit, you're always told to check the doctor's status), and then another crying phone call to the surgery center's billing department (who told me that I'm not the first one this insurance company has screwed over), I was finally told that if we pay $300 a month for 12 months then we won't have to incur interest and her bill will be paid.  Okay, not near as good as the 80/20 our insurance was supposed to pay, but it's alot better than the $6,000 bill we were originally sent.
The good news out of all of this is that the 12 month no interest plan doesn't start until our insurance confers with them and that is supposed to be no earlier than this coming September.  So we are already paying a little bit at a time to help cut that bill down and not have to find an extra $300 every month.
I have to admit something.  I am a Keurig addict.  My parents gave me their machine (so at least I didn't have to shell out the big bucks for it) and I use it at least once every day.  My favorite is Cappuccino and I also like to drink plain Folger's coffee.  Their Keurig came to me with a reusable filter so that I can use my own coffee grounds and not have to buy the more expensive k-cups.  Instead of 50 cents a day I bought a $10 giant package of Folger's and it should last me the whole month at least.  With Cappuccino's I dropped down from drinking around five a week to maybe one or two.  My $30 a month coffee splurge is now at around $20.

Monthly Savings:
Monthly satellite fee-  $8/month and $96/year
Netflix cancellation-  $8/month and $88/year (it doesn't officially get cancelled until next billing cycle at end of January so might as well not even count one month)
Coffee-  $10/month and $120/year

Total savings:   $306 in 2015

My Life/Book Goals for 2015

I am being overly ambitious this year with my resolutions.  Mainly because I've seen how happy our family is lately with the tiny changes we've made and I really want to keep it going.  Over this past year I've gotten a regular day to day job for the first time since I was pregnant with Goose nine and a half years ago.  The extra income isn't enough to write home about but it helps with groceries and I love not having to ask my husband for money all the time.  Having somewhere to go everyday and not sitting at home on my computer for hours on end has made me feel better about myself and I wouldn't go back to that depressed and lonely version of me for anything.

So in this coming year I hope to stay happy with my job and keep doing a good job so if any full time positions open up I will be first in line for them.  I recently worked full time for three weeks because someone was taking time off for surgery and the experience was amazing.  Not only was I working double the hours I normally work (so TWICE as much money!), but I also was able to eat breakfast and lunch every single day for free.  My girls went with me every morning since I had to be at work by 6:30 so they also received a free breakfast every day.  It was definitely worth having to get up at five every morning!

Home-wise, I have been doing a deep clean the last few weeks and our yard sale/donate pile has gotten so enormous that I've ran out of storage space in my shed.  My girls have cleaned their rooms and gutted several shelves in their bookcases without me even asking them.  I would love to keep that momentum going so that I feel more likely to clean on a regular basis.  Right now our house is almost too big for us because cleaning it just takes all my energy.  It is an all day job just doing the sweeping/mopping/vacuuming and general tidying.  My big goal in our home this year is to paint our play room.  It hasn't been touched since we moved in almost seven years ago and it's due for an overhaul.  It's a large room and there will have to be three separate colors chosen so I'm both looking forward to it and dreading it.

Every year I say I am going to exercise more and run on the treadmill every day but it only lasts a few weeks.  So I'm going to calm down and say maybe three times a week on the treadmill this year.  I've had a goal of running a 5K for a few years now but my lungs aren't quite on board with that yet.  Hopefully I can stick to the exercise and improve my breathing a little.

When it comes to reading I am going for quality over quantity.  I far surpassed my original 2014 goal of 75 books but there's no way I will reach that this new year.  I would love to completely shut myself off from ordering library books and concentrate on clearing my own overstuffed bookcases but there's a few series that I read with new books coming out in the next year and I refuse to wait until 2016 to read them.  I'm hoping to check no more than one out a month from the library and only use their used bookstore a few times over the year.  I bought a pile of big thick classics for Christmas and my hope is to read at least a few of them.  War and Peace is the one I'm most looking forward to!

My last big resolution is to work on saving more money for my family.  I know everyone has credit card debt and to be honest, I don't really think ours is as large as a lot of people's, but I'd still like to reduce it as much as possible.  I'm going to try the 52 Week Money Saving Challenge and put all of that money aside for our big planned Fall 2016 Disney World trip.  I would love to be able to pay all of our meals in cash when we go so that we can enjoy ourselves and order anything and everything we want!

(I got this printout from Fresh and Organized but there are a ton of them floating around the web)