Blogger book swap!

In my five-ish years of blogging I have participated in many blogger swaps, organized and hosted by some fabulous ladies, but I have never been so perfectly paired up with someone!

The lovely Heather and Katie, paired myself up with Molly, from Blonde Out Loud. What is so great about these swaps is that I almost always meet someone new. Sometimes it turns out to be a flop and I don't necessarily click with that blogger, but Molly and I totally hit it off! We have so much in common, it's pretty surreal!

Molly and I chatted quite a bit through email and Twitter, and we learned that we're both about the same age, we have several of the same interests and she quickly caught on that my 30th was last week and she went above and beyond to make me feel special.

On top of buying me a book that was on my list of books that I've always wanted, she bought me one of HER favorites (how special?!) along with a postcard and Kate Spade canvas tote bag from.... THE STRAND! 

 

The Strand is a used bookstore in New York City that has been there since 1927 and has EIGHT MILES of new and used books. Basically, the place sounds like heaven on earth for a bibliophile like me, and I have now added it to my list of "must-see places"!

The books Molly chose for me couldn't have been more perfect! She picked up Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson, which has been recommended by several friends and it's pretty safe to say it is one of James Patterson's more popular novels for women. It will by my first novel by him, and I cannot wait to read it! The second book she chose, is one of Molly's personal favorites, Angels by Marian Keyes. I know this author is a favorite among many readers that enjoy the same books as me, so I'm hoping I can get to it soon... Plus, I just love that it's one of her favorite books. What a sweet surprise!

What's your favorite bookstore? Have you been to any cool ones like The Strand? 

I'd have to say my favorite practical bookstore is Half Price Books here in Des Moines (which is a chain) and then my favorite "fun" bookstore would be The Vault, in Oskaloosa, Iowa. It's an old bank!

Lauren Oliver review - Pandemonium, Delirium, Before I Fall

A couple years ago I won an ARC copy of Lauren Oliver's debut novel, Before I Fall and this is when I fell in love with her style of writing. I'm not talking about Before I Fall today - but just looking at the beautiful cover should make any YA fan interested!

Lauren Oliver writes primarily for the YA audience but also recently released a book for the middle grades called, Liesel & Po. Her style and technique is flawless, and I think she sets such a great example for her audience. Her books have just enough risque, without going over the top.

I knew after finishing Before I Fall, that I would devour her second novel, Delirium. The synopsis totally sucked me in, and I was just dying to get my hands on this book! As soon as it came out the beginning of 2011, I bought it on my Nook (one of the first books I read on it!) and took it in in almost one sitting.

From Goodreads:

Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the government demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.


It's another dystopian - but we aren't sick of them yet, right?? Like The Hunger Games, this novel is about a society that strives to eliminate love. They believe that passion, emotion and falling in love is a sickness that must be cured. Some people fall for the hype and are brainwashed, others rebel and escape to live in the Wilds as Invalids.

I adored Delirium (obviously) and when I saw that the sequel, Pandemonium was on Around the World Tours, I quickly signed up. Several months later, it was finally my turn to read and review!

Now, I'm posting about both books, because I'm not sure who has read Delirium and who hasn't. I'm hesitant to talk too much about the sequel because I don't want to spoil anything! I didn't love the second installment as much as the first, but it was still very, very good. The first half of the book dragged a little, but once it got passed about halfway through, it was obvious that the ground needed to be set to make way for the real action. I'm glad I breezed through it and got to the good stuff because the end was SHOCKING. I did not see it coming.

I will say, if you liked The Hunger Games and you liked Divergent, you will probably like these too. This trilogy (yep, there's going to be a third!) seems to be more for girls, but it has the same major elements as both THG and Divergent. Dystopian, wannabe utopian society. Possible love triangles. Action and adventure. Chaos. Cliffhangers.

Don't miss out on this author - she's fantastic!

Today I've linked up with Heather at Blonde Undercover Blonde for Bookclub Friday!

Wine & Love : Subbing, ESL, and too much reading

Today I am participating in Nora's weekly feature, Wine and Love. Each week us bloggers post what we are loving this week and what is making us reach for the wine! 

This weeks loves: 

♥ Getting a subbing job on Wednesday! I did not expect to work, because most school's get out early on Wednesdays and the district I sub most in still pays their subs for a full day even though they're only working half. To get a job on Wednesday usually requires being requested. I have been requested two weeks in a row now! This makes me very, very happy. Double love!

♥ My ESL (English as a second language) classes. I'm taking two this semester. I've only taken one so far since I began working on my education degree and that was back in the summer. The more I learn about this group of students, the more passionate I get. Hence, yesterdays post. ;)

♥ Adding more charms to my Pandora bracelet. My mom got me two more charms for my birthday and I just love them!

♥ Introducing sushi to my dad, and him liking it!! I'm sort of surprised, even though I knew he would like most of it. For the most part, my parents really like the basic rolls and nothing raw, but it's a start!!

♥ Planning vacations! So far this year I am planning a trip to Vegas for Lesli's birthday and a trip to DC to see Becky. I'm SO EXCITED! I've never been to either place!

This weeks wines: 

→  The insane amount of reading for almost every single class this semester. I have no idea how I am going to participate in the three book clubs I am in and keep up on Modern Family, Revenge, The Big Bang Theory, The Middle, The Biggest Loser and The Bachelor.

→ So... I get it. Politics and religion are not well received in these parts. The past two times I have even hinted at the subject it got little to no reaction. Sometimes I think it makes perfect sense that politics and religion are two things people don't really talk about it, and then other times I don't understand why we don't talk about it more, so that we learn. I'm not blogging for comments, so I don't really care, but I'm still putting this as a wine because sometimes I would like to initiate a conversation about these subjects with friends in the blog world, but I understand it's a sensitive subject.

→ The fact that my "fat jeans" are no longer that, and they are actually regularly worn jeans. This is just not okay. I'm only whining about this once though. Time to take action and do something about it.

→  Revenge wasn't new last night. In fact, none of my shows were. I was so looking forward to coming home and watching Revenge... Booooo....

That's it for me! I'm super happy that I had more loves than "wines" this week and the fact that I was really stretching for the "wines"!!

What are you loving this week? What's been the highlight of your week?

Semi-Wordless Wednesday

 

Want to know more about this billboard in Iowa? Read this.
Or, don't read it. Just think about the message.

Na, na, naaa, naaaaa, naaaaaaaaa ...

They say it's you're birrrrrrthday! Na, na, naaaa, naaaaa, naaaaaa, it's my birthday, too!

Wow! Birthdays always make me feel like a celebrity or something because my phone is going off every two seconds with Twitter mentions, people writing on my Facebook wall, texting and/or calling. Seriously. I feel so loved and blessed! Thank you!

Yesterday was wonderful. I am so glad that early in the morning I decided to skip work (ahh, the luxury of making your own schedule...) and I am so glad I did. When my alarm went off at 5am, I looked outside, said "hell no," and turned my alarm off, put my phone on silent (so I wouldn't wake up to the districts calling) and went back to sleep until 8am. It was glorious.

When I got up, I decided to make french toast and I drank my coffee, ate french toast and read blogs in bed. I would be a happy, happy girl if I could start every morning with blog reading but considering I am not a morning person, that is not always possible!

After laying around for awhile, my sister suggested a sushi lunch. You don't have to twist my arm to take me out to sushi, so I immediately said yes and jumped in the shower ready to GO!

We had sushi at Sakari, which is a popular sushi place in Des Moines that didn't make a good first impression on me. My sister loves it, and she said I had to give it another chance. I'm glad I did, but it's definitely no Miyabi 9 or my new favorite, Wasabi 9. It was nice to have some sister and sushi time just the two of us though!

After she left and went to class, I went down the street to my favorite Caribou location to read for history and my reading class. History is definitely awesome so far, I really love it, but it's A LOT of reading. Other than the intense amount of reading, I'm enjoying it. There's something amazing about learning history as an adult. It's just different. My reading class this semester is also turning out to be a good one... So far, I have borderline hated my reading classes and the texts have been awful and horribly dry. This one is completely different and is written sort of like a novel with lots of anecdotal comments. I love it so far!

So, I spent a couple hours at Caribou, reading and drinking coffee. Oh, and also Whatsapp'ing with Lisa and Becky. Love those girls!

After leaving Caribou, I had about an hour at home before I had to leave to go pick up a friend and head to our nightclass. To fill that time I did a little laundry and also was inspired to take a new Goodreads picture....

I'm a nerrrrrd and I know it (to the tune of the LMFAO song...) lol

At 4:45 my friend that has night class on Mondays with me (different class, same times) wanted to stop at Starbucks before. Of course I complied! Then, she bought me a latte and an oatmeal cookie! I wish I had taken a picture. It was so sweet! :)

As we headed to class, we were about 10 minutes early and I poked my head in the room because it looked like the class had already begun. Ummm... that wasn't my class. I was in the wrong BUILDING! This is why I have a planner... I should have USED it. I had written down in there what building I was in and for some reason I was convinced I was in the same building as her. I had to book it across campus in 10 minutes (which required driving, as it was down the street a ways) and just barely made it on time. Luckily, I have great school friends because, they saved me a seat next to them. ;)

After class I went and bought running tights, as I was discussing running the Red Flannel 5K that's coming up in February and I really need some warmer running pants for cold weather running. I'm hoping some new gear will invigorate me and motivate me to get back in gear. It has been exactly 13 days since I last ran. That. is. not. ok. I was doing so good!

Once I got home I made some dinner and sat down to watch some trashy reality tv The Bachelor and read for my social studies methods class.

Overall, such a great day! I've got a great weekend planned with our last 30th birthday in my group of friends to celebrate and some fun plans on Friday!

Hope everyone's week started off great! Thank you for all the birthday wishes. It seriously made my day! :)

Do you have any traditions on your birthday like staying home from work/school or breakfast in bed?

It's A Wild Ride

Thus far I have ...

• Moved across the country twice - both coasts!

• Watched my 100 year-old elementary school, where my mom and the rest of my family went, be torn down, and a new building built down the block.

• Survived a horrible three years in one of the roughest middle schools in my districts.
  

• Managed high school without the help of my best friend when she moved away after 9th grade.
  

• Achieved some major personal girls in high school, which included making the cheerleading squad (with no gymnastics or dance background) and becoming an editor on my school newspaper.

• Rebelled against my family and chose to attend Iowa State University instead of University of Iowa, successfully converting several Iowa fans into ISU fans. Go Cyclones!

• Wrote for my university's newspaper my freshman year, then decided I didn't want to major in journalism anymore and chose the oh-so-practical department of fashion merchandising and design (sarcaaaasm).

• Joined a sorority, and after living in a house with 52 girls for a year and a half, deactivated.
  

• Earned my bachelors degree and moved away from home to a larger midwestern city.
  

• Through a sorority sister, I found a very young company that I fell in love with and stayed with for the next five years.
  

• Moved back to my hometown temporarily on a pit stop before moving again. This time to South Carolina.
  

• After almost a year in South Carolina, I felt the worst kind of homesickness and loneliness. I knew I had to move back home.
  

• Quit working for a company that I was head over heels in love with. Luckily, a position opened up again a year later and I began working for them again.
  

• Two months after I got my old job back, the company's owner (another huge corporation) announced that they were closing all stores and liquidating.
  

• At this time I decided to switch careers. For two years, I worked for another company, but meanwhile was planning how to earn a degree in education to become a teacher.
  

• After a horrible Christmas working retail (2010) I quit my job and began graduate school full time

• I also began substitute teaching at this time, which solidified my choice to pursue a career in education.

• Today, I am ... happy, energetic, hopeful, wiser, optimistic, realistic, and excited for what the next few years may hold....

• Today is my 30th birthday, and that? Blows my mind. It feels completely impossible, but I am insanely curious to find out what my thirties has in store for me.
  

I can chalk this up to these two, simple words.

Time. Flies.

A sizzling love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright

Last year when I saw several of the girls in my group of friends reading Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, I didn't understand the appeal. It's a stuffy old architect from over 100 years ago, right?

Wrong.

In Loving Frank, Nancy Horan creates a historical fiction story about one of Frank Lloyd Wright's long term mistresses, Mamah Cheney. Although the details in the book are made up, the bigger picture is all factual and everything that happened in the book, really happened between 1903 and 1914.

I thought, ok. This sounds good. Maybe someday I will read it, and then I promptly forgot about it.

Then when Lisa suggested touring the Frank Lloyd Wright home in Oak Park, IL while we were all Chicago, she urged me to read Loving Frank. I didn't want to tour his home cold, and know very little about his life, so I checked out the book and planned to begin reading it on the bus to Chicago.

Oh my, am I glad that I did. Not just because I gained some knowledge about Frank Lloyd Wright's family before touring his home, but because it was so interesting and the story was so enthralling. FLW is a very charismatic man that is easy to love and hate at the same time. I commented to the girls once we got to Chicago that I wasn't sure if I liked Frank. Obviously, he's unfaithful to his wife and he's famously carrying on an affair with another married woman, but there are moments in the book where I was literally cheering for Frank and Mamah, wanting them to be together.

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current.

So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives.

In this ambitious debut novel, fact and fiction blend together brilliantly. While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America’s greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story and illuminates Cheney’s profound influence on Wright.

Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Horan’s Mamah is a woman seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world. Mamah’s is an unforgettable journey marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leading inexorably ultimately lead to this novel’s stunning conclusion.

The end of this book had a twist so shocking and out of nowhere that it left me stunned and heartbroken. Since finishing this book, I have not been able to stop thinking about it and have already recommended it to several people.

You want to know the twist right? I'm telling you, you will fly through this book just to get to this twist!


While in Chicago I was really looking forward to touring FLW's home. His home, which he built for his wife and children to live in is nestled in an Oak Park neighborhood, surrounded by old Victorian homes. It's kind of funny to see, because there are all these homes that look very similar and then sitting on the corner is a FLW home, that is so clearly not like the others.

The tour took about an hour and we toured his family room, dining room, children's bedrooms and playrooms, FLW and his wife's bedroom and his studio. The guide was fantastic and she was so clearly well-educated on his life and career. She had many anecdotal stories and comments about each room. It made the tour so much fun!



Today I am linking up with Blonde Undercover Blonde for her Friday Book Club - stop by and check it out! I'm always interested in seeing what everybody else is reading.