Tag Archives: Thinking on Thursday

April 26, 2012 · 3:44 am

Poem In Your Pocket Day

Poem In Your Pocket Day, poetry books

 

Good morning folks! So today, April 26th, is Poem In Your Pocket Day. Find a poem to write down and carry with you all day in the hopes of sharing it with family, friends, or strangers.

I guess this has been going on annually for about 10 years, but this is the first year I haven’t been late to the party. Luckily I put a reminder in my phone, and so I grabbed some poetry books from home and brought them to work with me to look for the poem to carry in my jeans pocket all day.

I wanted a poem that just makes me happy. After browsing through the poetry books above, I finally decided on “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou, because if there is a happy, sexy, confidence-inspiring poem for women, this is it! I also wrote down this on the same piece of paper:

“Love is a nectar which the brides of dawn

pour for the strong

So that they rise glorified before the

stars of night, and joyous before the

sun of day.”

That’s from Prose Poems, a book of Kahlil Gibran poetry and that was in my Gibran book of love pictured above. I also wanted something love-themed, so I’m cheating and carrying two poems with me today.

So, what poems are you carrying in your pockets today? Leave comments and share! It’s what Poem In Your Pocket Day is all about!

~Sarah

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March 8, 2012 · 1:41 pm

Thinking on Thursday: IMPATIENCE

Hiya guys… so, yet another non-review post this week. But actually, that ties into my thoughts today about reading impatience.

So, I’m reading A Feast For Crows by George R.R. Martin, which is about 1000 pages long, and I’m about 600 pages into it. I really should have read this AGES ago, after I finished the third book, but I kept putting it off because I feel impatient when I read long books. Which is silly, because my favorite series ever is a bunch of books that are crazy long, but still. I don’t know when this happened… I never really used to be intimidated by chunky books. But now it just feels like such a COMMITMENT, because I know that unless the book is so good I’m addicted to it like crack, it’ll probably take me a week or so to read. And that just seems like such a long time, when I really like to try to read at least a book or two a week.

So, now I’m over half-way through this super long book. And honestly, AFFC is not my favorite in the series so far. Partly because I had to go read a re-cap of what happened in the last book because I waited so long to read it, and partly because none of my favorite characters are in this book – they’re all in the next book, A Dance With Dragons. For some reason, Martin decided to write AFFC and ADWD so that the books’ events are actually happening at the same time, but half the characters are in one book and the other half are in the other book. So besides the fact that I’m getting impatient and just want to hurry up and finish so that I can move on to something else, I’m not even enjoying it as much as I enjoyed the first three books because these are all the characters that either bore me or annoy me.

I usually hate these cat pictures, but this one seemed to fit my mood so perfectly.

I was hoping to be done with AFFC by now, but I got NO reading done the past few days. Well, actually I bought and started reading a book called In Search of the Multiverse and I read about 25 pages of that, but that barely counts. And now here it is, my last day off of the week, and I’ll be lucky if I can finish this chunky book by the end of the weekend. Wish me luck.

So, does anyone else have this problem?

Anyone dread super-long books because you’re impatient and want to get to the next book?

Even if the long book is good?

Do you just avoid chunky books so that you don’t run into this problem?

~Sarah

 

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February 23, 2012 · 12:41 pm

Thinking on Thursday… TV

Yeah, so it’s not a bookish-theme for today’s ToT… but whatever, I made up ToT anyways, so you know… I’ll do what I want.

So I’m sure you’ve all heard me whining about being so super-busy, and it’s TRUE. And next week is probably gonna be kinda busy too, but hopefully not as much. Things should calm down in the next few weeks… hopefully. Anyways.

I’m talking about TV today partly because when I’m super busy I 1) don’t have the time to read, sometimes for days at a time and 2) I’m so exhausted that if I do find a bit of spare time, I watch tv. I fell asleep on the couch the other day watching Friends re-runs, just a brief hour nap before having to get up and go out because it was game night. So, I’m sharing with you some of my favorite shows that are on tv now. If you have Hulu, you should take advantage and watch them. Also, this is my way of promoting my favorite shows so that they don’t get cancelled. You all know how much it hurts when awesome shows are cancelled, like Firefly or Pushing Daisies. So feel my pain and give these shows a try.

 

 

1. Cougar Town – OK if you are one of my blogging buddies, I am LITERALLY BEGGING YOU to try out the first season of Cougar Town. The show starts out being about Jules, newly divorced and in her 40′s. And by the end of season 1, it has totally evolved into an awesome show about a group of friends who drink together, play pranks, and is just AWESOME. The third season started on V-Day, and honestly, so far I’m not loving the 3rd season, but that’s because the season has been cut in half (13 episodes instead of 26, I believe), so some stuff is being rushed in case it’s not back for a 4th season. But if more people would give it a chance, I bet ABC wouldn’t cancel it. Even the honeyman watches it with me and finds it funny. I got my friend Doni into it, and she’s totally not a comedy-sitcom type of person. Please please please watch it? Also, see the title shot above? In the second season the creators started doing that every episode, because they really regret the title – it’d have such a bigger fan base if it wasn’t for such an unfortunate title. However, it’s been too long now and it’d be stupid of them to change it, so they mock it instead.

 

 

2. Whitney – Whitney is basically a sitcom based on and starring Whitney Cummings, and it’s SO FUNNY. I love mean, sarcastic humor and this is right up my alley. Whitney and her boyfriend Alex live together, and it’s basically a comedy about them and relationships in general. I laugh out loud A LOT. The show is still in the first season, so go on Hulu and watch a couple episodes. I’m definitely looking forward to buying it on DVD eventually.

 

 

3. Terra Nova – The first season ended in December, but it’s still on Hulu. And I know I keep blabbing about Hulu, but I think you can like watch 5 free episodes a week or something. I’ve manned up and gotten the $8 a month membership because there’s so many shows I wanted to be able to keep up with, and I don’t have DVR. Anyways, Fox is a bunch of bastards and STILL have not made a decision on whether or not to bring Terra Nova back for a second season, mainly because Fox hates anything sci-fi. It’s a GREAT show though. Basically in the future, we have completely effed up and the planet is dying and the air is so polluted we have to wear these mask thingys outside to even breathe the air. Scientists have discovered a rift in time-space that connects our world to a version of Earth 85 million years ago, and they’re sending groups of people back to set up a colony and essentially give humanity a second chance. And the show focuses on the Shannon family, and there’s dinosaurs and bad guys and evil plots and it was just SO GOOD. Also, there’s a little romance going on between teenagers Mark and Maddy, and I love love love them. And Fox has even said that the show was profitable for them, so I don’t know why they’re debating on whether or not to bring it back for season 2. Again, Fox sucks and they just hate sci-fi and anything that hints at rich people in power being evil.

 

Sooooo. Those are my big three. I love these shows and wish that more people knew about them and loved them as much as me. Also, I’m planning to jump on the Downton Abbey bandwagon soon, because I know everyone is head over heels in love with it. I bought the first season, so I’ll probably try it out in the next couple weeks when I’m at work.

OK, going to go attempt to read & relax now. Wish me luck…

~Sarah

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February 10, 2012 · 8:37 am

Thinking on…. Friday? – CAFFEINE

Hey ya’ll. So that’s right, I’m doing a “Thinking on Thursday” post on a Friday, because this was me yesterday:

Except that I didn’t run out of coffee. So this is what happens – I slept in yesterday until like 10:30 and that was awesome. I got up, went for like a half-hour walk, came back and showered, and then it hit me that I hadn’t made any coffee yet… But I figured since it was about noon, why bother? Well, turns out I am like a miserable ZOMBIE when I don’t have my daily caffeine fix. I didn’t feel like killing time online, playing video games, reading, cleaning, shopping, or anything really. I was literally too lazy to pick up my phone and go on Twitter. In the afternoon I ended up laying on the couch and watching 6 episodes of That 70′s Show and the last half of the movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry until the honeyman got home. During the movie, at about 6 pm, I finally decided screw it, and I made some coffee. My headache went away, I had a nice time with the honeyman hanging out and making dinner, and then at 9 I took a little 3-hour nap before getting up at midnight for work.

Coffee is probably my biggest vice. Besides the added bonus of keeping me alert and perky, I just love drinking it. I love switching the coffee pot on and settling down to read blogs while I sip. I love getting coffee while I’m out and about, shopping and whatnot. I love drinking coffee at other people’s houses. I know how bad the creamer is for me, but it’s SO WORTH IT. I can’t help it. I don’t even want to help it. My biggest vice could be a lot worse.

What sucked the most though is that I had no motivation to read. I had the book IN MY LAP and still never got around to it. I didn’t have the concentration for it, especially since it’s a sci-fi book about Mars and there’s some details and smart stuff I actually have to pay attention to.

So, yeah. That’s why there was no blog post yesterday. But you can be damn sure I’ll never make that mistake again – I’ll take care to properly caffeinate myself each morning, lest I have another day of just staring at the tv. Blech.

Anyone out there are coffee-addicted as me?

Does it affect your reading / blogging?

~Sarah

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February 2, 2012 · 4:11 pm

Thinking on Thursday… LITERARY TATTOOS

So I was actually going to write a post about the whole “Franzen hates e-books” thing, but I decided that wasn’t really worth the post. I mainly would have been saying “dude has a point”, but ya’ll know my anti-ereader sentiments already, so ehhh. I’m too lazy to go through it right now.

INSTEAD, let’s talk about something definitely on my mind this morning – Tattoos! I don’t love ALL tattoos - I prefer my tattoos to be small and pretty, but who in the book blogging world doesn’t love literary tattoos?

Now, I’m purposely saying “literary tattoos” instead of “bookish tattoos”, because I think literary covers a broader scope – any quotes, the alphabet, common phrases, pictures of authors/book/book scenes, etc.

I have two tattoos right now, (one more literary than the other) and I’m craving a third one… and since my birthday is next month, tht might just happen. But first, the ones I currently have:

“Live Laugh Love” circled around my left wrist. And yeah, I know LLL is kind of cliched, but I love it. It reminds me to be happy and enjoy life, even when stuff sucks. Also, I’ve realized I take very few pictires with my wrist in the shot, lol. This was from about 2 years ago and the clearest picture I could find right now.

 

“I’d rather be reading.” scrawled across the top of my right foot. I had trouble deciding exactly how to express my love of reading and books, without choosing a long-ass quote or getting a picture of a stack of books, which would be ugly and boring. I think this came out awesome, and since I got in October right before it got cold out, I’m really looking forward to flip-flop weather.

I want another tattoo, but I take my time in deciding. I mean, it’s permanent! Which is why I’m hesitant to get a direct quote from a book tattooed on me, cause what if I end up hating that book later on in life? Or, quotes that I like seem too long and since I don’t like big tats, that cancels those out.

You guys know how much I love Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, so of course I want an Outlander-themed tattoo. I have several pieces of Outlander jewelry thanks to the honeyman (seriously, I love that man), including the ring below. I want to get that thistle Celtic pattern tattooed on me, perhaps added to the Live Laugh Love tattoo around my wrist. It would be an awesome way to pay tribute to my favorite series, without having to pick a quote or something. I’ve actually already had my sister draw up the pattern on paper for me, so maybe this will be the one I get next…

There’s one quote from a song that I’ve really been wanting, but I’m not sure where I would put it, or how small I could make it… “This life is temporary but the soul is eternal” from the song Thieves in the Night by Mos Def and Talib Kweli. It’s not bookish, but it’s words, so it counts as literary… right? Along the same lines, I’d really love to get the infinity symbol tattooed, and I’m thinking of maybe doing it in white ink… I’m not sure yet.

ANYHOO, literary tattoos are fun! And meaningful to bookish folk like ourselves. I love looking at them online, and probably my favorite site is The Word Made Flesh. I could scroll through that site forever.

So, what do you think of literary tattoos?

Is there any book, quote, or author that you’d be willing to get tattooed on yourself?

Do you have any already?

Or are you thinking of getting any?

And would you please leave links to your literary tattoos in the comments? I’ve love to see them.

~Sarah

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January 26, 2012 · 9:56 am

Thinking on Thursday… FINDING NEW BOOKS

Good morning ya’ll. So this week I’ve been thinking about the ways we all find new books to at to our TBR lists. I think that as book bloggers, we can agree that reading reviews on one another’s blogs definitely helps add to the list. However, I also know that I am a lazy book-blog reader – I am more likely to read non-review posts, like memes or personal posts, etc. I don’t know why… sometimes it’s that I’ve already seen a bunch of reviews of the same book, sometimes it’s that I realize a book blog I follow really doesn’t read stuff that I’m interested in and I’ve just been too lazy to take them off of my Google Reader, etc. Every now and then a particular cover or title will stop me and I’ll read the whole review, and if it sounds good enough I’ll put it on my “look for at the library” memo on my phone.

But as we know, there are so many other ways to find out about new books.

And for me, that’s kind of necessary. I’m a very eclectic reader - I’ll read general fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, classics, YA, historical, non-fiction, westerns, etc. However, I know a lot of book bloggers have one preferred genre – romance only, YA only, classics only, etc. And if I’m not in the mood for YA, I kind of tend to skim the blog posts of those bloggers. Same if I’m not in the mood for romance, etc. I’ve noticed that there are very few bloggers out there reviewing sci-fi or westerns on a regular basis – maybe because the majority of book bloggers are female, and sci-fi and westerns tends to be thought of as more “man genres”. So basically, I’m always looking for other ways to hear about good books.

When I used to work at Waldenbooks, it was THE BEST because I was so knowledgeable about what books were really popular, were really in demand, etc. And since readers of all genres come into bookstores, I was constantly exposed to different books in different genres just by helping customers, and by shelving books. (My god I miss shelving books.) It’s been like 6 years since Waldenbooks closed, and I MISS IT so much still. I can’t wait for the day when the honeyman is making enough that I don’t need to work anymore, because then I will quit my job and go get a part-time bookstore job. Just cause.

ANYHOOOO, what I’m getting to here is the way of learning about new books that’s hardest for me – bookstore browsing.

We all know that crazy excitement that comes over us when we enter a bookstore – there’s BOOKS! And they’re new! And there’s SO MANY! Imagine the possibilities! But the thing is, I’m not always willing to fork over some cash for a book that I just discovered while browsing. I know nothing about it – I don’t know if it got good reviews, if it’s popular, I’ve never heard of this author, etc. And hell, even knowing something about the book ahead of time may not be a good thing – the hype monster could have extremely exaggerated the wonderfulness of a book and it ends up sucking (coughThe Weird Sistersahem). Which basically means that while I love, love, love browsing around a bookstore, I hardly ever really discover a great new book while doing so.

However, I am happy to report that last week I browsed, I bought, and I LOVED. I was killing some time in the Barnes & Noble in my mall before heading to Second Job, and I was browsing around the sci-fi/fantasy section. I eventually noticed a group of books by this guy Robert J. Sawyer, and I picked up a couple of them up and they all sounded really different. One of those books was Flashforward, which apparently was the basis for that tv show a few years ago (which I never got around to watching, since it was cancelled). And I kind of wanted to try reading that, but the book was really beat up. So I looked again at a few of his other books, and Hominids sounded really, really interesting. Plus it had one of those “Hugo Award winner” logos on the front. So I said what the hell, I’ll try this author out – I purchased Hominids, and a trade paperback book by the author called Calculating God.

SUCCESS! Hominids turned out to be a fantastic book, and after I finished it I went and drove like 20 minutes away to pick up the sequel, which I plan on starting today. I haven’t started Calculating God yet, because I want  to finish the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy first, but I am now totally confident that it will be at least decent, if not awesome.

I’m always so jealous of people who say “Oh yeah I was browsing around the bookstore and this looked really interesting and it turns out it’s a hugely amazing book” because that NEVER happens to me. But now it did! I feel like I’ve cleared a major hurdle of some sort… like now browsing around bookstores, great books will just jump out at me. Or at the very least, I won’t be quite so scared to shell out $8 for a paperback I know nothing about.

Sooo…

How do you find out about new books?

Do you find great new-to-you books while browsing?

Or am I the only weirdo that has a problem finding good books whilst browsing?

Is it just too risky to spend money on a book you’ve never heard of before?

For those of you with e-readers, how do you browse? Is e-reader browsing boring, or ineffective?

 

Can’t wait to hear what you guys think! And I’ll be home and being lazy today, so I’m particularly looking forward to chatting with you guys!

~Sarah

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January 19, 2012 · 8:45 am

Thinking on Thursday… IN A READING RUT

So, no real big impressive thoughts today. It’s really me venting my own annoyance with… myself, I suppose.

I’ve been in a reading rut for a while now. It just seems like it’s been AGES since I’ve read a book I’ve been absolutely crazy about. The last one I can really remember is Practical Jean by Trevor Cole, which I really enjoyed and already purchased my own copy of.

I can’t really figure out why I seem to be stuck in a rut. It could have something to do with my lack of reading-time lately, so I feel like I’m taking FOREVER to get through certain books. I’ve been trying to make sure I get at least 6 hours of sleep before going to work at First Job – since I work 12 hours shifts and it’s really slow at least half of that time, work is actually when I can get the most reading done. But when I’m sleep-deprived, I end up just watching DVD’s for the first half of my shift or so because watching something on the computer helps keep me awake. But last night I got PLENTY of sleep, like over 8 hours, yet I’ve still spent the morning drowsy and therefore re-watching season 1 of Pushing Daisies instead of reading. What up with that?

Also, my reading “mood” changes from book to book, so I’ve had trouble keeping up with those pesky poll reads. I still haven’t started this month’s poll winner yet, The Woman in White. Partly because I started reading Don Quixote and I haven’t finished yet (that sucker is LONG), so I feel… not good (articulate, I know) about starting another classic right now. I’m hoping my mini-readathon this weekend gives me a chance to make some major progress with DQ, so that I’ll be able to start The Woman in White next week – but I’m not promising anything. If you voted for it and I don’t get to it this month – sorry, but relax cause it’s a book for one of my challenges anyways, so I’ll get to it sometime this year.

ANYWAYS, I’m going to try to get out of this bookish funk by:

1 – Not only getting enough sleep before work, but also having some sort of breakfast & caffiene when I get up for work. Which is hard, since I wake up at about midnight to go to work, but I can try…

2 – Trying to finish the books I’m currently reading right now as soon as possible, to motivate myself and because I want to read other stuff.

3 – Possibly re-reading an old favorite or two next. Since I haven’t stumbled upon many truly AMAZING novels in a while, I’ll revisit my faves and just take comfort in their awesomeness.

Good plans, no? Hopefully I can stick to them enough to get myself pumped up and out of this slump. So…

What puts you in a reading rut?

What are the ways you get out of it?

Being  a book blogger, doesn’t being in a reading rut really suck because you want to post reviews and whatnot?

Thanks for listening to my whining. Hopefully you chime in with a bunch of stories about your reading ruts to make me feel better ;-)

~Sarah

 

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