Bout of Books Friday

Friday

Rhys was off work, so I anticipated getting lots of reading done. When will I learn not to anticipate things? Firstly, we had to take the car to the garage to get new tyres and I wanted to go with to have a wander around the charity shops while we waited (also so Rhys didn't have to sit there by himself for hours). Then after that Rhys was feeling crap so I looked after Benji for a couple of hours so he could have a nap. We went to the library as they had a new book in for me, which was great. Then we basically spent the rest of the day mooching about and I again didn't get much reading done until after Benji was in bed and Doctor Who was over.

I did get another early birthday present from Rhys, which was amazing and book related so I shall show you what it was. My birthday isn't until June but Rhys and I are historically terrible at keeping secrets so we tend to get each other about four presents as we keep giving them to each other as soon as they arrive, so have to keep getting more so as to have something to give each other on the actual day! My first present was the Juno soundtrack, which I used to have but then lost, my second present is the most amazing thing in the world and I will take a picture sometime in the future when I remember (it's an Eddie Izzard 'Cake or Death?' t-shirt from the gig we went to the other night!), and my third present is this:

 

 

For those of you who have no idea what this is, it's a notebook with Death from The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman. She is my favourite and I love her.



Pages Read:110
Books Read From: A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
Books finished: Laura's Handmade Life by Amanda Addison, The Craft Business Handbook
Blogs Visited:.....
Snacks Consumed: some of a massive (seriously, massive) tub of popcorn we got for Eurovision tonight and also half a bar of the new Cadbury's Marvellous Creations with cookie and nuts. It was actually really nice.

Bout of Books Thursday

Thursday

Today was not the best day, readathonwise. I did finish knitting a teeny tiny blanket for a premature baby though, so not a total washout. I did manage to read about 20 pages of The Craft Business Handbook though while knitting blocks for my friend.... 

Pages read: 20ish
Books read from: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, and The Craft Business Handbook
Books finished: Laura's Handmade Life by Amanda Addison & The Craft Business Handbook
Blogs visited: .......
Snacks consumed: Some chocolate and vanilla ice cream

Bring on Friday.

Bout of Books Wednesday Update

The master post thing kind of stopped working for me today. I figured if I was getting bored scrolling through all the other days, everyone else probably was to, so I'm going to do a post per day from now on! 


Wednesday

Yesterday was slightly less successful than Monday, but I'm not going to let it deter me! I still have the end of the craft cupboard revamp project to get on with, and Benji and I are taking a trip to the Farmers' Market later to get some things (which may or may not include a cupcake...) and I will probably get caught up in knitting teeny tiny hats for premature babies again, but that aside, The Art of Fielding is getting really good and I'd like to get settled down and read at least another few chapters today!

Pages Read: 122
Books Read From: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
Books Finished: Laura's Handmade Life by Amanda Addison
Blogs Visited: Among Stories, and then the usual suspects.
Snacks Consumed: a cupcake, which was awesome, and then Rhys brought me a pain au chocolat when he came home which was also awesome. 

lemon cupcake with a flower on. Made of win. 

Today's definitely been better than yesterday which is pretty much down to the fact that all I've done since dinner is lie on the sofa and read. I didn't get hardly any reading in before Benji went to bed as he rolls so much now that I take my eyes off him to read a paragraph and he's like, across the other side of the room, upside down, in a drawer or something. (Just to clarify, this has never happened so far, but the other day he was nearly under the table in approximately five seconds of not looking at him) So anyway, during hours of daylight much attention must be paid to the baby which means lots of knitting (which I can do without looking at it), but not much reading :-( Anyway! The cupcake I bought myself earlier was awesome and The Art of Fielding is, as expected, getting better and better. I might squeeze in a few more pages before bed and hopefully some more in the morning as Rhys doesn't start work till about midday and he likes to hang out with Benji when he's here in the mornings!

Also, why is eating a cupcake so much more awesome than having just a slice of a big cake? I love cake in all its forms but there's just something extra satisfying about cupcakes and I can't work out what it is. 

Bout of Books Challenges

Book to Music Challenge

So firstly I want to say that I love this challenge! It's hosted by Medusa's Library and basically what you have to do is make a playlist to go along with one of your favourite books.  The songs on this playlist that I'm currently making on Spotify for Little Women (pretty much my favourite book of all time) will seem like they have no relation whatsoever to it, but what can I say? They immediately jumped to mind! 

Apologies for the amount of Disney!

1. Sunny Afternoon - The Kinks
2. I'll Make a Man Out of You - Mulan
3. Pack Up - Eliza Doolittle
4. Pencil Full of Lead - Paolo Nutini
5. In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning - Jamie Cullum
6. Whistle While You Work - Snow White
7. Someone Like You - Adele
8. Octopus's Garden - The Beatles
9. Trouble - Ray LaMontagne
10. Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles
11. You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You - Jamie Cullum 
12. Feeling Good - either Muse or Nina Simone depending on your preference!
13. Home - Michael Buble
14. American Tune - Simon & Garfunkel

Bout of Books Master Post

So, it's Monday and Bout of Books is finally upon us! We're still at my parents' this morning, travelling back today and so far this weekend I've done absolutely no reading, but today is a new (gorgeous and sunny) day, and not only is it readathon, but I'm going to see my best friend later (so yay for that) aaaaand all my blogging girlies are doing the readathon too so I'm even more excited!!

I think I'm going to keep this as the master post for updates and post challenge entries on a different post just to keep it from getting too massive, and so that I don't have to write a completely new post every day. We'll see how it goes, anyway!

Monday

So far this morning I've read nothing, but I did bring four books with me for two days away (obviously), so I'll be reading from some of the following at some point today: 

      

I just realised, after nearly two and a half years of blogging that it's sooooo much easier to copy and paste pictures rather than save and upload them. Yes, I am an idiot. Yes, you can feel free to laugh at me. I'm at least part of the way through all of these books and they're all great in their own ways. I need to intersperse this with some knitting I'm doing for a friend and also some I'm doing for this awesome charity (making teeny tiny hats and blankets, so cute!), and also want to spend some time on other people's blogs being supportive and chatting and stuff :-)  

Pages read: 173

Books read from: Laura's Handmade Life by Amanda Addison, Stitch n Bitch Nation by Debbie Stoller, The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Books finished: Laura's Handmade Life by Amanda Addison

Blogs visited today: Creative Deeds Reads, and then Laura and Ellie, who already get enough linking, you should all know where they are by now!

Snacks consumed: So far, dry toast for breakfast because there was no margarine, no jam,and only Weetabix which is gross. Yay mum's house :-p Oh, and tea :-) Also, fake milky way bars from Sainsburys and some chocolate tiffin from Costa (incidentally, why is everybody now calling fridge cake tiffin again? they seem to switch between the two depending on mood...)

Tuesday 

So far this morning I've managed to have some breakfast (toast with honey today, because I'm back home and our cupboards are marginally more stocked than mums.. that said I'm still going to have to go shopping for snacks later on I think!) and my front room looks like this: 

That little space on the armchair is where I'm perching to do blog stuff while Benji rolls round on the floor, and just to give you an idea of what I'm contending with at the moment, the bag on the chair is full of knitting, the paper behind it is a list of my current and future creations, on the table behind the mug are two alphabet blocks currently in progress for a friend, at the front of the table, almost out of shot is my folder of knitting patterns, and on the chair is a pile of material I nicked from my sister for another project. Alongside all that, The Art of Fielding is hiding in the corner of the chair there, Jamrach's Menagerie is next to the laptop, and Laura's Handmade Life which I finished yesterday is underneath the pile of material! As well as reading, I need to have a massive sort out of my craft storage area today as at the moment the table is holding everything so it's out of Benji's way! 

It's a gorgeous day here, and Benji and I plan to go on a little trip later to the library and post office, but probably no major expeditions, which leaves lots of time to catch up with The Art of Fielding! 

Pages Read:35
Books Read From: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
Books Finished:Laura's Handmade Life by Amanda Addison
Blogs Visited Today: there were some, but I've forgotten...
Snacks consumed: Bourbon biscuits

Bout of Books Goals

It's Bout of Books on Monday, and I thought I should probably write about my goals for the week, just so that I know where I'm starting from in order to judge how spectacularly I've failed at the end of the week. Defeatist? Me? Never...

Anyway! Because I love taking photos of piles of books (and Rhys hates it because I inevitably end up leaving piles of books lying around the house in unlikely places which he then falls over in the middle of the night), here is a pile of books (sorry Rhys!):

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Story of the Treasure Seekers, and Laura's Handmade Life I've nearly finished already. I may even finish TPOBAW before Monday but it's on there just in case I don't, because I must. The bottom three (Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch, The Rose Petal Beach by Dorothy Koomson, and Citadel by Kate Mosse, in case you can't see) are just examples of how awesome my library is, and I am definitely going to get to them in the next couple of weeks. I like to have variety at the moment, as I don't seem to be able to read one book at a time anymore....

And in the name of variety, these are some of my many review copies (most of which I was meant to review a while back but the baby and the library got in the way!) that I really want to get to:

The two which particularly excite me are Pictures at an Exhibition by Camilla Macpherson, because it's about the National Gallery's Picture of the Month scheme during World War Two, and each chapter has those code things you scan with your phone and you can see the painting for that month. I love the idea of this! Also, Sketcher by Roland Watson- Grant just arrived today and it sounds awesome. Plus I want to keep up the roll that I'm currently on (I was sent a graphic novel to review earlier in the week and finished it the day after it arrived. Review pending).

I will inevitably end up reading half a book and feeling crap by the end of the week, but there we go. If I don't dream big, I have nothing to aspire to!

Aside from unrealistic piles of books, my goals for the readathon are thus:

1. Read for at least an hour a day. 
2. Go to bed half an hour earlier than usual and read before sleeping. 
3. Visit people's blogs and comment! I am so crap at commenting lately so maybe if I make myself do it, I'll get back into the swing of it!
4. Make awesome snacks - I'm thinking popcorn, muffins and probably something with cheese. Maybe cheese straws or cheese scones...

I feel like lately my reading has been really fragmented and pushed to one side, because I've been crafting like crazy (see here,here and here for pretty things I've made since the last time I told you about pretty things I'd made!) and learning about the Ancient Greeks, but that's just finished and although I'm working on an order for a friend, there's no deadline for it so I reckon I can just make next week reading week. I'm seriously looking forward to it. 

If you're participating let me know so I can come and check out your posts and COMMENT! :-) 

I Want There to be a Summer Secret Santa..

Last Christmas I took part in The Broke and the Bookish' Secret Santa and it was awesome. Now we're getting towards the halfway point of the year and I kind of wish there was something similar to be done in the summer. I'll admit it, I really like getting presents! And yes, it is my birthday in June, but at the moment I can't participate in RAK as I'm about to have no income whatsoever, and I sort of feel like I want to do a one -off.

The thing I liked most about TBTB Secret Santa was that the books didn't have to be new, and you got some extra info about your person to get them a little gift. It didn't have to be expensive, and when I got my parcels I was really excited, and equally excited to do the shopping, wrapping, sending, and waiting for a reveal post from my santee! I feel like we should do a midsummer one... Who's with me?

Am I the only one who thinks Christmas is too long to wait to do this again?