The Supreme Macaroni Company

2014, Books in Bed, Fiction, Women /

Since I’ve read all of the other Valentine books, I figured I should go ahead and read The Supreme Macaroni Company, too. I hate leaving series unfinished (and since one of my goals is to catch up/keep up with series, it seemed extra important to go ahead and read it.)

It was fine. Not my favorite Valentine book but not my least favorite, either. I used to love Valentine and her weird family but now I just love her weird family and she gets on my nerves. Also, the ending was predictable. At least I predicted it a lot earlier than it came about. Both what happened to Giancarlo and what happened to the house.

I didn’t predict either would happen exactly as they happened but it was obvious. Giancarlo did THAT with the house (duh) without telling Valentine (duh) and then… yea. Predictable.

Also very typical of Trigiani, so if you like her books — you’ll like this one.

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Zentangle Artist!

1 Comment / Community Chest, Daily Dose /

I made a contribution to Laurel’s GoFundMe project and she sent me this awesome bookmark!

It arrived right after we got back from #BlogHerFood and every morning I told myself I was going to take a photo and thank her properly and blog about it.

And every afternoon, I collapsed into my bed without having done so.

I love it. It’s beautiful. Thank you Laurel! I hope you make your goal and become a Certified Zentangle Teacher! Your work is fabulous and I’m proud to own a piece of it.

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The Week After

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Work /

Why do I always forget that the first week after a BlogHer conference is maddening, exhausting, and overwhelming? Probably because if I didn’t forget, I’d curl up in a ball the week before a conference and refuse to move until it was over?

It takes a good five days to adjust, to catch up, to get back to normal. Today is day five and I’m almost there. ALMOST.

I’ve got no less than five assignments due and they are all five have finished. This is not how I generally work and I need to get my shit together and go back to getting ONE thing DONE completely AT a TIME.

But first, I need more coffee. A lot more coffee.

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Hiding Out At the Pancake Palace

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction /

I was really enjoying Hiding Out at the Pancake Palace until I got to the end. It’s like there were pages missing. We go all the way through this and THAT is how it ends? I keep thinking this morning that maybe I was too tired to finish last night at 11pm and maybe I did skip some pages or something? Maybe if I go back, I’ll like the ending (or feel like it even made sense). If I try and it turns out I missed something, I’ll let you know.

Otherwise, unless you like an fulfilling and dare I say DUMB ending, skip this one. (It’s middle grade fiction, too, by the way.)

And, now I want pancakes.

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More On Miami

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Travel Log /

I’ve decided it’s true, you really don’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone.

Our trip to Miami is a good example.

We really enjoyed this trip. Pretty much enjoyed every damn thing about Miami.

Which is a little odd since on previous trips we weren’t all that thrilled. Not that we hated any of those trips (let’s not think about the synchronized swimming parts of some of those trips), it was just different.

I think we had to leave Florida to appreciate Miami properly.

The weather. The people. The graffiti. The coffee. The beach.

We visited the Bayside Marketplace.

We rode the Metromover many times.

We wandered through Lummus Park and the SoBe beaches. We ate at The News Cafe.

We went to the Perez Art Museum (and discovered an Artomat in the wild!)

It was all so much better because we’ve been gone so damn long. For a few moments, I even thought maybe we could move to Miami and then my sanity kicked in. Nah, we won’t move there but I would like to visit again.

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BlogHer Food: Day 2

4 Comments / Daily Dose, Foodie, Travel Log /

Another great day at BlogHer Food.

The morning keynote was excellent. I’m a huge fan of I am Baker, ya know.

We rode the excursion bus to Brickell Village but walked a few blocks to a terrific latin cafe, Tinta y Cafe. We had just gotten our food when Stacy, Julie, Jenny and Jenijen showed up so our lunch hour extended to a two+ hour lunch. That was a lot of unexpected fun.

The after party, hosted by Elise, Jaden and Ree, was terrific (as usual.) The flamenco dancers were great, the venue was gorgeous, the people were fabulous. (Even Melisa, Diane and Liz. lol)

Another great event and I’m so glad I was able to attend #BlogHerFood (even though I’m not a food blogger.)

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BlogHer Food – Day One

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Foodie /

Great day at BlogHer Food.

I didn’t spill coffee on my shirt.

My 20 minute lightning talk on copyright violations and content theft went well.

I saw awesome people.

Amanda, I Am Baker hugged me.

The Wisconsin Cheese folks hosted an awesome event, BloggersByTheBay — I will never eat hummus without blue cheese again. OMG that was amazingly good.

I hugged Elise Bauer. Twice.

I facetimed with Jory’s kids.

Great day and we get to do it all over again tomorrow. After I get some sleep, please.

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Miami!

Daily Dose, Travel Log /

I’m loving the Downtown Hilton, (except omg the rooms are freezing when you’re cold & wet from the darn rain.) And the Publix across the street. Also the cute little Metromover train (we rode a train on JMP’s birthday!) Had a ton of fun at Bayside Marketplace. Browsing shops, eating Cuban food, listening to the band, drinking Cuban coffee.

Awesome day.

(I still miss my dogs, though.)

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The Bintel Brief

2014, Books in Bed, Comics & Graphic Novels, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

I wonder how The Bintel Brief made its way into my library bag. I don’t think it’s been on the shelf long enough to be an impulse choice, since the damn non-fictions are still upstairs… except, hmm. Now that I think about it, maybe that is where I got it. I wonder how that happened… in the past, graphic novels have always been in a section of the non-fiction (whether they were non-fiction or not… and this is assuredly non-fiction. I bet it was miss-shelved.) Whatevs.

I really enjoyed it.

The art was good. The stories selected were good. I liked everything about this. I am also tempted to track down some more about The Bintel Brief advice column. It’s super-interesting to me.

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The Here and Now

2014, Books in Bed, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I wasn’t sure I wanted to read The Here and Now… after what Ann Brashares did to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants… I hold book grudges for a really long time. But, I bit the bullet and reserved it. If nothing else, I’d have something to complain about, right?

Well… it wasn’t a bad book. It wasn’t SotTP good but it wasn’t bad. I am not sure I liked how it all went down there at the end. A little too neat and tidy but with a lot of weird twisty things, too. Possibly for a sequel? Which leads me to something I can complain about… does everything have to be a sequel nowadays? Really? Could we just have some stand alone books, please?

Also, mosquitos are bad. Time travel ain’t all that hot, either.

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