Two years today, I decided to start a blog.  At that time, I envisioned it to be a general blog…I would write about everything in my life….my family, my projects, anything that I felt like writing about.  My blog has evolved over time.   Although I have never posted my kids’ names on this blog; after I discovered facebook, I felt more comfortable doing family updates there, and blogging about other things here.

Not long after my first blogiversary last year, I decided to change from the blogger platform to wordpress and creating my own website; hosting my blog through godaddy.com.  My friend, a graphic and web designer (Treasured Pages) did a very large part in designing my website’s format.  I’m very happy with it.  One goal that I made last year was that I would put up my quilt art works up through a separate tab on my website — but alas, I haven’t yet :-(.  This year I will!  Even though I don’t have a camera (it broke a couple months ago, and wasn’t functioning very well for quite a while before then), my older son got a new one for Christmas, and I will borrow his!  So, I really have no excuse now.

I would say that over time my blog has evolved to mostly writing about books.  It hasn’t been until the past last nine months or so that I have made a real effort to document the books I’ve read, and what I thought of them.  So, when you look at the list of books (under the books tab on my website), it doesn’t indicate all the books I’ve read since I started my blog.

I feel that, in the past year, I’ve found a fantastic book blogging community (and many, many bloggers I’m in awe of….too many to list here) and have enjoyed events such as the 24-Hour Read-a-thon, Book Bloggers Appreciation Week, and the Book Blogger Holiday Swap.  I appreciate those of you who regularly visit my blog, leave comments, or send me e-mails (through the “contact me” tab on my website).

Since I didn’t do a bookish ”end-of-the-year” wrap up when New Year’s Eve occurred two weeks ago, I will do a very brief one here.  I don’t seem to read as many books as some of you do, so this will be very short!

I don’t know how many books total I read in 2009, since I didn’t start documenting every one of them until well after 2009 started.  Which were my favorites that I read in 2009?  I thought and thought about this, and it basically comes down to two.  I don’t know if they will stand the test of time — will they still be read 100 years from now?  But, in 2009, when I read them, these two books touched me the most.

“The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer (my thoughts here),

and

“Unaccustomed Earth”, a collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri (my thoughts here).

Did I dislike any books that I read in 2009?  Yes.  That would have to be “Gone With the Windsors” by Laurie Graham (my thoughts here).

Because it is my blogiversary, I would like to celebrate by giving you a chance to win a copy of either “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” or “Unaccustomed Earth”.   In the comment section, let me know which one you’d like to win and why.

I think I’ll make the deadline two weeks from now; that would be January 28th.  I’ll plan to announce the winner on January 29th.  Sounds good?

Here’s to another blogging year!!  May it be a good one for all of us.

Back in October, when I participated in the fall Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon, I was lucky enough to win a prize.  Yes, not only do participants get to catch up on their reading over 24 hours, they also get several chances to win a variety of cool prizes!  The next read-a-thon is scheduled for April 10th, 2010, so mark your calendars already!

So, what did I win?  I was told I won a chocolate monkey and an attache full of books.  Well, last week, the chocolate monkey arrived courtesy of Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Reading?  (one of the organizers of the read-a-thon).  I was very excited — not just because I love chocolate, but also because it meant the rest of the prize was probably going to arrive soon!   Yesterday, it did.

Zumaya Publications sent me….count them… nine brand-new books, along with a bag with their logo on it, a leather-covered notepad (perfect for writing down book titles I want), and a ton of bookmarks.  You can see my prize package (including the chocolate monkey) below.

The publication company is a new one to my knowledge; as are all the authors of the books sent to me.  However, it is clear that someone did their homework (or it’s all a very fortunate coincidence).  Two of these books are quilter’s mysteries; and I’m a quilter.  Actually, quite a few of these books seem to be mysteries….should be good whenever I need a diversion in my reading.   One involves a murdered poet .  One book is a series of short stories, which I’ve been reading a lot of lately.

I’ll go ahead and show a list of the titles, but before I do that, let me show you the solid-chocolate monkey before I took a bite out of one of his ears!  Yummy.

The books in the prize package were:

“The Not-So-High Seas”, A Dassas Cormier Mystery, by S.H. Baker.  Takes place in the fall of 1926 and involves pirates.

“Murder by Metaphor”, by Chester Aaron.  At a college, a poet is found dead.

“Gideon” by Chester Aaron.  This is labeled as Juvenile Fiction/Historical; and takes place during WWII in a concentration camp.

“Canyon Calls”, by Michael Just.  A series of short stories taking place in the Grand Canyon, all by the same author; and is a “collection of stories for vacationers, hikers, campers, armchair adventurers”.

“Sunstruck”, by Mayra Calvani.  Labeled as “Women’s Fiction”, with a varied cast of characters.

“Derelicts, Bummers, Scoundrels and Doves”, by Steven C. Levi.  Seems to be historical fiction about the Alaska Gold Rush.

“Quilt as Desired”, by Arlene Sachitano.  One of the two quilt-related mysteries here; seems like she has written a few of them.

“Quilter’s Knot”, by Arlene Sachitano.

“Succession” by Herbert Lobsenz.  Labeled as “Literary/Men’s Fiction” but this detective story’s blurb on the back looks interesting to this woman here. 

All these books are available through the publisher’s website; they seem to be on amazon.com also.

Finally, since I’ve gotten a ton of bookmarks–all the same style (they are in the first picture at top); with the publisher’s website on the front and a 2010 calendar on the back — if you are interested in having one, e-mail me through the “contact me” tab on my site with your address.  I can’t promise I’ll get them out in a hurry or all at once; whenever I have some stamps handy I’ll drop some in the mail.

Fun to receive all this stuff.  Especially during this holiday month when I am not supposed to buy myself anything, least of all books :-). 

Thanks go out to all the prize donors and organizers of the 24-Hour Readathon.

"Rebuilt" by Michael Chorost

There wasn’t much clamoring for this book, so it was pretty easy to do the “drawing”!  Kristy, you will be getting this book as soon as I finish the ATC.  I have a pretty good idea for it and will start work on it tomorrow!  Congrats, Kristy and I’ll let you know when it goes out in the mail !

After our big snow of the weekend, the sun has been out the last few days–the warm sunshine has been very seductive!  I took the dog for a walk today but it was a short one.  He hasn’t been out walking for a couple weeks; he had hurt his foot or something somehow but is no longer limping.  Anyway, I think he was out of shape, plus it was warmer than it has been for a long time.  I noticed my older son got a little bit of sunburn today–probably from his after-school  track and field practice.

Have you read my previous post about the 24-Hour Read-A-Thon!  I’m getting very excited about participating and starting to consider which books I’m going to try to read. 

 One book  (which I’ll read at or near the beginning of the Read-a-Thon; I’m hearing that it’s better to reserve the “light reading” near the end when you are more tired) is this:

Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time  by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.  Even if you–like me– have not read this book yet, you probably know it’s about one man’s efforts to establish schools (mainly for girls) in places where the Taliban tend to reign.

Their non-profit organization, Central Asia Institute at www.ikat.org, accepts donations.  I’m going to make a donation to their organization when the Read-a-Thon is over!  Even small amounts of donations are helpful–a teacher’s salary out there averages $1.00 a day.

Now I’m off to look for other books I’m going to designate for the Read-A-Thon pile….

********Don’t forget to enter my book and ATC give away! Deadline is April 20th.

 Booking Through Thursday asks:

 Some people read one book at a time. Some people have a number of them on the go at any given time, perhaps a reading in bed book, a breakfast table book, a bathroom book, and so on, which leads me to…

1. Are you currently reading more than one book?
2. If so, how many books are you currently reading?
3. Is this normal for you?
4. Where do you keep your current reads?

Good questions, and I’m glad they came up because I was trying to think of what I was going to blog about today!

1.  Yes, I normally read more than one book at a time.  How many depends on the circumstances and the books.   For example, if I’m on vacation, I read one at a time.

2. Right now, three.  That is usually the max number of books I have going at once.

3. Yes, this is normal for me .

4.  I always keep one in my purse to read at times like waiting in the car line to pick up my kids.  There is one by my bedside.  There is one in my studio to read when I’m doing handwork but only if it’s a large book that can stay open by itself (otherwise, I catch up on my magazines in there).

What are my current books?  They are  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, currently going back and forth between my purse and bedside–that tells you that I consider it good!  

I cracked open How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry last night. 

And, in my studio, I’m going through by The Illustrated Bead Bible: Terms, Tips & Techniques by Theresa Flores Geary, a book I borrowed from the library.

How about you?  What are your reading habits?

***********Don’t forget to enter my book and ATC give-away!  Deadline April 20th.

As you might know, recently I moved my blog from blogger to this site (and wordpress).  I want to celebrate with a give-away.  I thought a while about what that would be.  Since I’m a reader, it should not be surprising that I decided to give away a BOOK! 

But which book?  I’ve read quite a few good ones lately, so it was hard to decide.  Finally I decided on this book:

I talk about “Rebuilt: My Journey Back to the Hearing World” by Michael Chorost in this blog post here. Sounds good to you? Then leave a comment here. I’ll have the drawing on April 20th….I’ll get one of my kids to draw a name out of a bowl for me. Then I will announce the winner on April 21st.

By the way, this is a new copy; a trade paperback.  I’m not giving away my own…too many folded-down corners, anyway (yes, I am guilty of doing that, but only with my own books and from those I won’t do it with, say, antique hardback copies).

AND….as an added bonus….whoever wins this book will also recieve an ATC from me (the design will be a surprise)!  However, I may make it so that it can also be used as a bookmark.  If you don’t know what an ATC is, see my March 28th post which is the most recent one regarding ATCs.

I hope to see a lot of comments here .  By the way, this is currently set up so that first-time commenters have their posts moderated, so you may not see your comment appear right away.

Good Luck!!

S. Krishna (whose book reviews on her blog makes my “To Be Read” list grow longer and longer!) has recently reviewed “Saffron Dreams” by Shaila Abdullah.  Be sure to read her review here. 

Now I want to read this book, too!  For one lucky person–I hope it’s me–there is a chance to win an autographed copy of “Saffron Dreams”, given by S. Krishna.  All you have to do is go over to this blogpost and leave a comment.  You get a second chance to win if you mention this give-away on your own blog.

Speaking of give-aways, I’m planning on having one of my own to celebrate the new home of my blog.  Stay tuned!