The Ides of March

MY WORKDAY IS ALMOST finished but I wanted to get a post on here before the day is over. Truth is, I just wanted to use this title, The Ides of March, before it was March 16th when it would no longer be accurate. Never mind, I'm weird. 

I learned something fun the other day when I got my GoodReads e-letter. They've now got a Pinterest account! Yep. You can scroll through whatever genre you like and see all kinds of book covers. There are no descriptions but it's easy enough to enlist Google for that.  With all the controversy surrounding Pinterest, I think it's cool that GoodReads gives it the thumbs up, don't you?  

In other news, in another e-letter, I discovered the: 

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Yes, indeed. I had heard about this fun contest in year's past and thought it would be fun but never took it very seriously. Now that I have the official website to go to submit my entry, I might actually wrack my brain to come up with something. 

The rules are quite simple: Pretend you're writing a "fiction-novel." (I'm assuming this redundancy is intentional since this site is fairly lighthearted.) Anyway, they want to see the first sentence and it needs to be a BAD sentence. Not bad, disgusting. Not bad, evil. Bad clever, like breaking the rules but not. I'm not doing it justice. You can go to the site and read it for yourself. Fun stuff.

On another note, did you see this on the news the other night?

Photo: Pinterest

I don't remember all the specifics but a city somewhere in the US has tragically lost funding for their library system. So to deal with the closures, sweet, intrepid book lovers have created these crafty little libraries all over the city. Anyone can borrow a book and it's strictly on an honor-based system. For real! Stuff like this makes me proud to be a human being. 

And finally, I thought I'd share the quote that decorates my Mary Engelbreit desk calendar today. 

Reading is a means of thinking

with another person's mind; it

forces you to stretch your own. 

                      --Charles Scribner, Jr.

Tag! I'm IT. Thanks, Mindy!

IT IS THANKS TO Mindy that I'm IT. She is such a sweet, fellow-Oregon blogging cyber-friend. How could I say no? If you haven't visited her blog, you should. Mindy is a talented and inspiring young woman. Exceedingly creative, she's a master at everything she touches, from pulling weeds to painting walls. And she's got adorable children too. And she blogs about it all. How cool is that?  

Being IT is fairly simple actually. I'm to answer the 11 questions she assigned to me (and 11 other bloggers of her choosing). Then come up with 11 more questions to pass on to 11 of my favorite bloggers. I'm not sure I'll be able to complete the latter part of the assignment for fear I'll be leaving out too many wonderful blogger-buddies, but I'll tackle the first. 

So here are Mindy's questions and my answers. 

1. If you could only listen to 1 CD for the rest of your life, what would it be? 

This question is pretty easy. I've been listening to Jack Johnson's "Sleep Through the Static" for, gosh I don't know how long. I don't know why but I just never get tired of it. So heck, what's a few more decades? 

2. If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go? 

This question is much, much harder. Although I'm not a good traveler, if I could get Scotty to set the coordinates, I'd have him beam me to New York City. Because publishing is a dream of mine, I would enjoy embracing the hub for a few minutes. 

3. How many siblings do you have and where do you fall? 

I have two older sisters and one younger brother. So I'm a middle kid which could explain a lot. 

4. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? 

Probably a lot but I was absent the day the teacher went over this material. 

5. Beer or wine? 

If I were a drinker, definitely wine but I'm not and I don't, unless coffee counts and then you could say I'm a fairly heavy drinker. 

6. If you could have coffee with anyone, living or dead, who would it be? 

Speaking of coffee, right? Probably Jesus Christ. And I'd hope for free refills because there are lots of questions I'd have and probably keep him busy for quite awhile. 

7. What is your favorite veggie and how do you prefer it? 

This question is kind of difficult because I'm not a huge veggie fan. Fruit, yes. Veggie...not so much. I would have to say fresh sweet corn on the cob with a bit of butter and salt. Does this count? Sounds more like candy to me.  

8. If you were on death row, what would your last meal be? 

Speaking of fruit, how 'bout a huge platter of sliced, fresh fruit, including exotics like mango and papaya and guava. Yummo!  I would die happy. 

9. Do you wish on stars or anything else? 

I used to when I was younger. There were some difficult growing up years and I'd wish on stars or wishbones  or dandelions and this little ritual sort of helped me keep my sanity. Now, as an adult, I have no need to wish. But I do pray. :) 

10. What crowd were you a part of in high school? 

The stoners. No wait. The losers. Actually I was kind of all over the place, trying to fit in and form an identity. Thankfully I had a few good friends. I definitely wasn't popular or trendy. I stayed in the background. To be honest, I hated high school. 

11. What are you wearing? 

Sweat pants, a T shirt, sweater, and SLIPPERS! It's 9:15 PM as I write this.

So there you have a little peak at some of tidbits in my life. 

*     *     *

Now, I'm going to pose 11 questions. Rather than assign 11 people, I think I'll just allow anyone to take these and run with them. If you want to post the answers on your blog, just leave a comment and link below. This way we'll all be able to go to your blog and read them. 

  1. Who was your (famous or not) teenage heart throb and why? 

  2. What's your all time favorite TV show and why? 

  3. What inspired you to star blogging? 

  4. What is your favorite holiday and why? 

  5. If you had a whole day to do exactly what you wanted, what would it be? 

  6. What's your favorite animal/pet? 

  7. What's the title of the last book you read? 

  8. You found a wallet and turned it in. The owner gave you a $500 reward for your honesty! How are you             going to spend it? 

  9.  Do you use an E-reader or prefer old-school, paper books? 

10.  What talent do you wish you had? 

11.  If you could relive one day in your life, which one would it be and why?

As always,