This is of no interest to anyone but me, but here's a list of the books coming out next year that I'm excited to read (this will be updated, probably):
January:
5: Captivate by Carrie Jones (sequel to Need), Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves, Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers, Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler, Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinsky, It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs
12: The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova, All Unquiet Things by Anna Jarzab
19: Dug Down Deep by Joshua Harris, The Mark by Jen Nadol
21: The Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes
26: Blood Ties by Kay Hooper
February:
1: Possessed by Kate Cann, Numbers by Rachel Ward
2: Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian
10: The Wife's Tale by Lori Lansens
16: Horns by Joe Hill
23: The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place by Maryrose Wood
March:
2: House Rules by Jodi Picoult, Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
9: Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman, So Much for That by Lionel Shriver, The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
16: Vampire Diaries: Shadow Souls by LJ Smith, The Body Finder by Kimberly Dirting
23: Every Little Thing in the World by Nina de Gramont, Caught by Harlan Coben
April:
1: Cool Beans by Erynn Mangum, This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer (sequel to Life As We Knew It)
6: Strange Fate (Night World) by LJ Smith
20: Radiant Shadows by Melissa Marr
27: The Last Time I Saw You by Elizabeth Berg, The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong (Darkest Powers book), The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
May:
3: The Red Thread by Ann Hood
4: After the Kiss by Terra Elan McVoy, Lies by Michael Grant (sequel to Gone and Hunger)
25: Heart of Valor by LJ Smith, Night of the Solstice by LJ Smith, The Lighter Side of Life & Death by CK Kelly Martin
June:
1: My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares, The One That I Want by Allison Winn Scotch
10: The Evil Within by Nancy Holder (sequel to Possessions)
15: Churched by Matthew Paul Turner, The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst
July:
13: Live to Tell by Lisa Gardner, Broken by Karin Slaughter
Finished The Shadow Club Rising by Neal Shusterman.
This takes place after the events of The Shadow Club. Not surprisingly, nobody at their school trusts the members of the (now-disbanded) Shadow Club. And when a new student (the incredibly obnoxious and unfortunately named Alec Smartz) starts getting hideous pranks played on him, everyone (students, teachers, the principal) believes it's because of The Shadow Club in general and Jared in particular.
So Jared has to prove his innocence. I preferred this to the first book but still like Unwind most of all. :)
Totally Terrible Things on Tuesday:
- Trying to be nice and getting yelled at instead of a 'thank you'.
- Wet dog
- Two full work weeks and two partial work weeks---then I'm unemployed
- Filling out on-line resume's and job applications sucks!
Totally Terrific Things on Tuesday
- I'm currently in first place on our Fantasy Football League.
- Soon...I can pull out my Christmas decorations and decorate my house all up really nice for the Holidays.
- LIfe is halfway decent....you know, if you don't count the impending unemployment.
Are you prepared in case of a natural disaster? What do your plan and preparations include?
I have a battery operated radio with batteries. I can lay my hands on both in less than a minute.
I have a weather radio that I can't program the new county in. However, should the old county have any bad weather I know about it.
We decided last night that the safest place to go if there were a tornado is the short hallway in our bedroom. That was decided upon after I shared that I have taken refuge in our 'commode closet' with Darcy and Baron at least three times in the past 11 months.
I have had experience with earthquakes, floods, fires and blizzards. None of them actually harmed me, my family, or any of our 'stuff' but they have all happened within walking distance of the home I was living in or visiting.
Finished Hunger by Michael Grant (the sequel to Gone).
This is more of the same (kids surviving in a world without parents) but there are more bad things thrown in in this one. (No, I'm not getting more specific; if you're curious, read them.) :)
I think I prefer Susan Beth Pfeffer's books, but these are good, too.
Halloween---a week later. Sorry about not sharing sooner. I spent most of last week exhausted and unable to concentrate on anything. I ended up taking half a sick day on Thursday and then proceeded to sleep the afternoon away.
Friday night before Halloween we carved our jack-o-lanterns. This proved to be very difficult as two of the pumpkins we had picked out were rock hard. After pounding one of the pumpkins with a hammer and knife Chris ended up using his jigsaw to cut the rest of the design out. The pumpkin Chris picked was a regular pumpkin and he did an amazing job with his design.
Chris spent Saturday helping our friend, Bentley, move. Jordan and I spent the day getting the garage ready for all of the trick-or-treaters we were told would descend upon our subdivision. We picked up some decorated plastic that turned our garage into a stone dungeon so Jordan and I spent the afternoon getting that hung. This was not an easy task as the wind was blowing which made it very difficult to tape the 'walls' to the garage door. I used a heavy duty project stapler to hang the plastic from the ceiling of the garage. Since we had recently had a garage/yard sale and what didn't go was given to charity...the garage was basically empty. Chris put a TV out there, we hooked up our DVD player and played an eerie Halloween dvd that was on a loop, so it just kept playing.
As I was gathering my costume together I realized something terrible. I sold or gave away the black shirt that I use with my costume. So, I was not dressed in all black as most witches are, I was dressed in a combination of purple and black. Chris made it home in time to get his costume on and then he helped Jordan get into his.
We/I bought about $75 worth of candy to hand out to the trick-or-treaters. I had picked out several bags of candy that was not our 'favorites' so I opened them to hand out the Pixie Stix, the gum, and the nerds out first. Towards the end of the evening I opened one of the five/six bags of chocolate. We were left with four/five unopened bags of chocolate. We don't know if it is the H1N1 that kept people at home or if it was all of the churches having their Fall Festivals on the same night as the trick-or-treaters....we just know that we were left with almost as much candy as we had given out. Chris took most of it to the office on Thursday.
Finished Gone by Michael Grant.
This is a pretty fitting series to start right after reading Life as We Knew It and The Dead and the Gone (and right before Under the Dome), because there are similar themes.
In this one, everyone over the age of 14 disappears, all at once. (So kids 14 and younger are now responsible for themselves/each other.)
To make matters more interesting, some of these kids start developing powers. (Think X-Men style mutations.)
Not surprisingly, they start to break into two camps--Team Sam (good) and Team Caine (awful).
This is an interesting series. (I'll be starting book 2 tonight or tomorrow; Gone ended with no real sense of resolution.)
Finished The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer. This is a companion book to Life As We Knew It.
Alex lives with his parents and two younger sisters in New York City. When the asteroid hits the moon, his mom is at work (she works in a hospital's OR) and his dad is in Puerto Rico for a funeral.
Alex has to figure out a way to keep his family safe and together, at least until one or both of his parents comes home.
I think I preferred Life As We Knew It, but this was good, too.
These books (there's going to be a third out in April) are so scary, too. I don't think I'd do well in a world where I'd have to acquire food someplace that isn't a grocery store (or any of the places where we normally get food) and I certainly don't know how to cook and wash clothes without electricity and running water.
I've neglected this spot for too long. It's time to move on.
Click here to see what I'm working on now.
http://sticksandastring.blogspot.com/
One of my VOX neighbors is in the hospital and she wants to keep a diary of sorts with her thoughts and feelings. She has an iPhone and wants to know how she can go about posting to VOX from her iPhone. I don't have a clue as I don't have a cell phone of any kind.
If anyone knows how or can offer up a suggestion it would be very much appreciated.
THANK YOU!!
