Things I Love Friday

Midnight Cowgirl of The Fashion Planner has a Things I Love Thursday meme, but since I have my TV Thursdays meme I've decided to postpone it til Fridays since I don't really have anything going on! I feel it's just a fun way to get to know more people, what they love, especially anything that was just super duper during the week! Plus, I'm really working on positivity so this will be a big help to make me think about things that were great this week or other things I'm really grateful for and love. So without further adieu....

Indian summers

Watching my baby boy sleep

My kitties sitting on my lap and purring

Giving and getting kisses from my hubby

Thai Food

Graceling

Star Trek

*Above image was produced by none other than Midnight Cowgirl. Thanks a heap for letting me use it! And I know it says Thursdays, but like I said above...;) I stand corrected; the image is from: http://galadarling.com/static/participate.

TV Thursdays- V

TV Thursdays is my weekly TV meme! Come join and leave a link in the comments section or just a plain ol' comment will do too!

This week's topic is on the new ABC drama V. This new series is actually a remake of both the ABC miniseries and its subsequent TV series back in 1983-1985. I actually remember watching this one as a wee one...reruns! And I thought it was such a great and interesting concept. We have aliens visiting Earth and saying they come in peace and will exchange their technology for certain precious resources they need from our planet...thus they are called the Visitors aka V. But no, they do not come in peace, really, they want to eat us as food and perform experiments on us! Yikes...but they as saviors and they lull us into sweet and utter devotion. So on comes the resistors, the rebellions!

The new series is a wonderful reimagination of the original...better special effects, acting, etc. So it's a real treat and nail biter every week. Since I'm a big sci-fi junky this completely helps me get my fix! Nothing is as good as it seems and it's important to always check everything fully before you jump in!

This is what I've been watching this week...so let me know what you've been watching if you're not a V watcher and if you are tell me what you think of the story concept and the new take on the original.

Happy TV watching!

Ohh La La!!!

Stacy of Stacy's Books passed on this uberly awesome and highly prestigious blogging Ohh La La I Adore Your Blog award to me!

Now I must answer a few questions!

Where is your favorite place to read a book? In my bed!

Bookmarks or dog ears? I try to go for bookmarks, but sometimes...

What is the best book you have read so far this year? The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Graceling by Kristin Cashore, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.

Do you like to snack while reading and if so, what is your favorite snack? Too much hand movement in order to snack so it's usually just a big bottle of....water! But movies on the other hand...

Book borrower or book collector? I am BOTH! I am a book hoarder! I get a million from the library and a million from the local thrift store and Amazon.com loves me and I just found an awesome new online bookstore that ships for free with comparable and usually cheaper prices than Amazon, Book Depository. Oh, and I just picked up 16 books from the library that I'll never have time to read! Love books!

So I am passing this one onto a few old faves of mine so check them out when you get a chance!:

1. vvb32 reads
2. Crackin' Spines and Takin' Names
3. Chapter Chitchat

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermudaonion's Weblog where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading. If you want to play along, grab the button, and join the fun! (Don’t forget to leave a link in your comment if you’re participating.)

From Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen:

1. PANEGYRIC (pan-i-jir-ik): p.365 "This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities."

A lofty oration or writing in praise of a person or thing; eulogy.
ORIGIN: 1590–1600; From Latin panēgyricus of, belonging to a public assembly, from Greek panēgyrikós.

2. DILATORY (dil-uh-tawr-ee): p. 269 "His letter was soon dispatched; for though dilatory in undertaking business, he was quick in its execution."

Tending to delay or procrastinate; slow; tardy.
ORIGIN: 1250–1300; Middle English derived from Latin dīlātōrius, to postpone.

From These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner

1. PASSEL (pas-uhl): p. 348 "Ernest, I said, we have a passel of company."

A group or lot of indeterminate number.
ORIGIN: 1825–35; dialectal variant of parcel.

Teaser Tuesday- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

It's definitely a day late...sorry!

My Teaser:

p. 101 Suddenly I am furious, that with my life on the line, they don't even have the decency to pay attention to me...Without thinking, I pull an arrow from my quiver and send it straight at the Gamemakers' table. I hear shouts of alarm as people stumble back. Th arrow skewers the apple in the pig's mouth and pins it to the wall behind it. Everyone stares at me in disbelief.
"Thank you for your consideration," I say. Then I give a slight bow and walk straight toward the exit without being dismissed.

Monday Movie Meme- Death Scenes!

Feature Presentation...

MONDAY MOVIE MEME

Hosted by The Bumbles

This week's movie topic is all about Death Scenes...

WARNING: These movie recommendations contain spoilers so view and participate at your own risk!

1. From Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992): the vampire Amilyn played by Paul Reubens gets staked like halfway through the movie and is still dying at the end of the movie! It's hilarious...He's at the end of the stairs and with the stake in his heart and groaning with ugghs and ooohs!

2. From The Haunting (1999): Luke Sanderson played by Owen Wilson gets his head taken off by the chimney sweep thingy....I was sooo rooting for him to make it and then boom, nope he's beheaded!

3. From Return of the King (2003): When Eowyn battles with the king of the Nazgul and he says that "No man can kill me." And then she says "I'm no man!" And stabs him through his face helmet! Leave it to a linguist like Tolkien to use these play on words! He dies! It's great.

4. From The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008): When two little boys one German and the other Jewish befriend each other without knowing what really is going on in the world...they both end up getting gassed in the chamber since the German boy decided to hop the fence and join his friend in his striped pajamas for the day to find his friend's father....just happens to be the day the Germans are executing all in the camp...it's heart-wrenching, horrible, chilling, and has stayed with me for several weeks and I bawled like a baby for hours...

2009 Holiday Reading Challenge!

Yesh, it's that time of year again! I can't believe the holiday season is upon me again. Last year at this time I was seven months pregnant with a soon to be eleven pound baby born to me! Not so great memories. But this year, not huge and preggo and have the cutest baby boy to dote on for Christmas! So I'm in the mood and now I just found All About {n} is hosting the 2009 Holiday Reading Challenge, which will run from November 20 to December 31 st!

Here are the details:

1- Challenge will start Friday, November 20 and will end Thursday, December 31.

2- You can read anywhere from 1 to 5 books for the challenge and, of course, if you're like me, you are more than welcome to surpass that number.

3- And now, here's the clincher... they must be holiday related books. That's right, the holiday doesn't really matter, but it would be more "jolly" if your choices were Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc.

4- The size of the book does not matter, nor does the genre. It is also okay for the book to overlap with other challenges. The only thing I ask is that they are not children's books. YA is okay. And so are re-reads. I for one tend to read the same books every Christmas - they are tradition.

5- To sign up - leave a link back to your challenge post here. There will also be a post for review links as well as one for challenge wrap-ups.

6- And.... there will be goodies. That's right, we'll call them presents. At the end of every week that the challenge is running she will choose one winner from the review links and will allow them to pick a book of their choosing (of course, she will provide a list). Meaning the more books you read, review and link up, the more chances you have at winning a "present".

Well, my list so far that I've chosen are these:

1. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (reread for me)
2. Secrets of a Christmas Box by Steven Hornby (I won this online from Katrina)
3. The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans
4. The Christmas Almanack by Gerard & Patricia Del Re (Always a reread!)

I may add more....but this is good for now!
I hope you join in and take in the spirit of the season!

Everything Austen Challenge and Giveaway!

J.T. of Bibliofreak is holding an Everything Austen Challenge Giveaway! AND it's an INTERNATIONAL GIVE AWAY. One lucky reader will get the Jane Austen action figure, complete with quill, writing desk, and copy of Pride and Prejudice.

All you have to do is either write a six-word summary of one of her novels or Haiku poetry summary! And if you're apart of Stephanie's Everything Austen Challenge you get a few extra entries. So for more info. click on the Everything challenge link above and get started (the one next to Bibilofreak link)!

My Pride and Prejudice Haiku:

Too much pride excels
Too much prejudice avails
Then much love begins.

Mansfield Park six-word summary:

Fanny and Edward, cousins, together forever.

Weekly Glee

Well, I just thought I'd start talking about the Fox show Glee. I get to watch Glee a day late since I have no cable, satellite, or plain old regular TV on the antenna so I get to watch via the Internet a day late! But that's OK, I don't complain.

• So far we Will Schuester volunteering to coach Glee Club since he was in Glee in his high school days.
• But all the kids are "losers" and it's "uncool" to join.
• Sue is the cheerleading coach and wants to bring Glee down since they're cutting into her "Cheerios" budget.
• Then we have the male star from the football team who supposedly knocked up his girlfriend, but actually didn't; it was his best friend from the football team who also joined Glee....
• We also have Will thinking his flighty, selfish and not so kind wife is with child...nope, she's faking it and wanting the baby from the football team's girlfriend to keep so she won't have to tell Will, and Will also has a crush on the high school counselor who's marrying the football coach to get over will oh and she's a germ freak like Monk!

So you throw all this into lots of great music in the Glee numbers and it's sort of a musical, actually and throw in some heart to characters that you didn't think had any! And voila, it's a masterpiece and can't wait for every new episode.

This week the principal ordered Sue to hold tryouts for a new member since she had just kicked off her start since she's pregnant...she let on a girl with Down Syndrome and Will started thinking she had some ulterior motive...something devious up her sleeve...since she even forked over some money to help Glee build a wheelchair ramp to the stage (Glee club has Artie...who's in a wheelchair). Flash forward a couple of scenes and we have Sue visiting her older sister who also has Down Syndrome and now we see a whole new side to Sue...I was crying like a baby, but in a good way. It was very touching and I really enjoy it when we see full character developments like this. It just makes everything seem more real and deep.

Till next episode!

These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner

One Line Review: Sarah's mean, ornery, smart, tough, and beautiful!

I really enjoyed Sarah! She's a hoot, tough as nails, no nonsense kind of woman! She's a wonderful character and I just loved reading about her life in Arizona at the end of the 19th century. Jack is also a wonderful love interest for her; he's just perfect! I was laughing, crying, and cheering through the whole thing! The only reason I won't give it a five is that there were some parts I found a bit slow, but that's life for ya...not everything can be high-adventure day in and day out!

And the Winner Is.....................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks to everyone for being a follower and helping me celebrate getting to the big 5-0! So without further adieu I would like to announce the winner..................................................................................................................................................................................................

Noella Li/1inseveralbillion @ Books A La Carte

So a big congratulations to her! And she has chosen The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting. Noella even saved me money by finding a cheaper place that ships for free! Book Depository!!! So check that one out as well!

I had a lot of entries and wish I was super rich to give a free book to all...my nine month old son Gabe picked the winner from his cute Gap ball cap!

Black and Mormon Edited by Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith

These articles were so insightful on being African American in a society that runs everything by white standards and then it delves deeper into how that affects African Americans in the Mormon church. How do they deal with the racist policies of the Church before the Priesthood ban was lifted in June of 1978? Many talk about how hurt they were, but how through their own personal experience with God they've been able to work through it.

Other articles talk about how since most of the LDS church in America is white, how they don't want to talk about race, but how it really needs to be addressed and that a lot of people in answer to why there was a priesthood ban continue to spread false folklore like "they weren't valiant enough in the preexistence or they are descended from Cain and thus cursed." These are completely false and yet are still used as reasons, which truly impact negatively African American members.

Black Americans have huge insights and ideas and culture to bring to the Church...I would really love to see more active hymns in the church, saying a few amens in agreement during sacrament meeting would be great!

I think it's very important to be aware about who we are and how we relate to others. Let's embrace all cultures over the world and incorporate their beautiful traditions into ours as well and truly become a worldwide church.

I really recommend this book for all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or for those interested in African American studies. It helps us see ourselves in a new light and to change what we didn't know was ignorant or insensitive before.

One More Day For My Giveaway!

Just a reminder to sign up for my giveaway which ends tomorrow at midnight MST!

TV Thursday- Favorite Shows Getting Axed

TV Thursday is a meme where I share various topics on the wonderful land of TV and hope you join in the discussion!

There was a TV show last season called Life on NBC...it was cancelled at the end of the season after two years. Charlie Crews is pardoned after twelve years in prison for a crime he never committed. He is released with lots of settlement money and with his badge back on the LAPD. He's out to discover who set him up and why. Damian Lewis plays Det. Charlie Crews and he plays him with an American accent since he's actually British. The accent is flawless. So they're solving crimes while he's investigating his own case...it's fun and pretty intense. It ended on a great note, though, like they knew it was getting cancelled and therefore wrapped it up pretty nice. So if you haven't seen this show...rent it, borrow it, etc! You won't be disappointed!

A few years ago there was Invasion and Threshold that I absolutely adored and they got canned halfway through the season with huge cliffhangers.

Veronica Mars is another one that I just love...it only last three seasons and the end was not a great send off...grrrrr!

What show(s) did you absolutely love last year or in previous years and it/they got axed?