It's Monday, What are you reading?

Last week I finished a few books, which was much better than the previous week.

 Here is what I read last week:
1.  Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich
2.  Love in a Nutshell by Janet Evanovich and Dorian Kelly
3.  The Twenty-First Wish by Debbie Macomber
4.  The Next Always by Nora Roberts
5.  The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

I'm still working on:
On my Ipod I am still reading Throwaway by Heather Huffman
In print form I am reading The Scottish Prisioner by Diana Gabaldon
On my Kindle I went back to Bumped by Megan McCafferty
As an audio book in the car The Death Cure by James Dashner
As audio on my Ipod:  Beyond Religion by the Dalia Lama

I'm still working on getting back to posting everyday, I did better last week than the week before.  Today I hope to get reviews ready for the books I finished last week and haven't reviewed yet and to polish my review for a blog tour post for Friday.  What did you read this week?

Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich

Overview

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum’s life is set to blow sky high when international murder hits dangerously close to home, in this dynamite novel by Janet Evanovich.

Before Stephanie can even step foot off Flight 127 Hawaii to Newark, she’s knee deep in trouble. Her dream vacation turned into a nightmare, and she’s flying back to New Jersey solo. Worse still, her seatmate never returned to the plane after the L.A. layover. Now he’s dead, in a garbage can, waiting for curbside pickup. His killer could be anyone. And a ragtag collection of thugs and psychos, not to mention the FBI, are all looking for a photograph the dead man was supposed to be carrying.

Only one other person has seen the missing photo—Stephanie Plum. Now she’s the target, and she doesn’t intend to end up in a garbage can. With the help of an FBI sketch artist Stephanie re-creates the person in the photo. Unfortunately the first sketch turns out to look like Tom Cruise, and the second sketch like Ashton Kutcher. Until Stephanie can improve her descriptive skills, she’ll need to watch her back.

Over at the bail bonds agency things are going from bad to worse. The bonds bus serving as Vinnie’s temporary HQ goes up in smoke. Stephanie’s wheelman, Lula, falls in love with their largest skip yet. Lifetime arch nemesis Joyce Barnhardt moves into Stephanie’s apartment. And everyone wants to know what happened in Hawaii?

Morelli, Trenton’s hottest cop, isn’t talking about Hawaii. Ranger, the man of mystery, isn’t talking about Hawaii. And all Stephanie is willing to say about her Hawaiian vacation is . . . It’s complicated.

My thoughts:
I borrowed this book from a friend.  She gave it to me last night and by this evening I was done.  I love how quick these books read, it wasn't like I spent all day reading it, although I did carve out more reading time today than I have been lately, but it just reads really fast.  I know I've read a lot of reviews that have complained that this storyline is getting stale.  Stephanie and her car troubles, will it blow up, be stolen, have a dead body in it or something else.  Stephanie and her inability to decide between Morelli and Ranger.  He lamenting on her job and ineptitude with bringing in skips.  Grandma and her funerals and viewings and her mom and pot roast and alcohol.  All that is true, but I can see myself continuing to read the series because it is comfortable and fun and kind of like the Star and OK magazines at the checkout at the grocery store, it is a fun diversion.

I have to admit that I am ready for her to make a decision on which man she wants in her life.  How long can she string them both along.  I get that Ranger isn't looking for a commitment so maybe for him it doesn't matter that she isn't just with him, but Morelli strikes me as the better choice of the two and I can't see him sticking around forever waiting for her to chose.

I liked the new twist with Joyce and that it was the bonds bus that blew up instead of her car.  It will be interesting to see how long Evanovich goes on with the series.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780345527714
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication date: 11/22/2011
Pages: 320
Series: Stephanie Plum Series, #18

Saturday Snapshot- Parkette's Birthday Party

Last weekend we attended a birthday party at a local gymnastics center.  The kids always have a really good time when we go here.

The highlight is always the foam pit.  They can crawl around, swing on a rope and jump off a pirate ship.  This is my oldest jumping off the plant with my daughter waiting behind him.

Crawling around looks easy, but the heavier you are the more it sucks you in.  I went in while I was pregnant one time and it felt like I was going to go all the way in the foam!  It is good exercise and brings a lot of smiles!

The last activity before cake is always the parachute.

The balance beam over the foam is a good way to get the kids to do it without being afraid of falling off.

The rope swing is the part that looks like the most fun to me!

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce at At Home with Books.

The Next Always by Nora Roberts (Book One of the Inn Boonsboro Trilogy)

Overview

"America's favorite writer" (The New Yorker) begins an all-new trilogy-inspired by the inn she owns and the town she loves.

The historic hotel in BoonsBoro, Maryland, has endured war and peace, changing hands, even rumored hauntings. Now it's getting a major facelift from the Montgomery brothers and their eccentric mother. As the architect of the family, Beckett's social life consists mostly of talking shop over pizza and beer. But there's another project he's got his eye on: the girl he's been waiting to kiss since he was fifteen...

The launch of a new Nora Roberts romance series always raised pulse-raising possibilities, but the first of her Inn Boonsboro trilogy is a pleasure onto itself. At its center are Beckett Montgomery, an architect with ambitious plans and a longstanding crush, and Clare Brewster, a young widow bookstore owner who has returned to her hometown. Roberts places readers inside the crosscurrents of small-town America, showing us how relationships evolve and hit speed bumps. With its French-flap cover, an attractive paperback original.



My thoughts:
This is my first library loaned e-book.  Our local library started carrying them last Friday and I checked this one out.  I made the mistake of clicking seven day loan instead of fourteen and felt a bit pressured as this was a busy week, but I managed to get it done before today.  I feel like my reading time has really dwindled lately.

This book was a nice comfortable read.  It reminded me a bit of her Sign of Seven trilogy and the In the Garden trilogy.  The characters had similarities to me to the ones in those books, but it was still a fun read.  Clare owns a bookstore, my dream job even though I know tons of them are going out of business, and Beckett is an architect who works with his family and still does a lot of the physical work as well.  His family is renovating an inn and they are making it into a one of a kind place.  There is a resident ghost who I will be interested to see more of in the second book due out in May.

Clare and Beckett have a grown up romance, she has three young boys and is a widow whose husband died in war and Beckett lost his father young and has always had a crush on her.  They move around obstacles and learn to trust each other.  They encounter the types of issues real people face, kids and job demands, trust and misunderstandings, and everything else.

I love how at the inn they are making each room different and to reflect a couple from a different book, like Elizabeth and Darcy.  It made me want to read the books the characters were taken from!


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780425243213
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Publication date: 11/1/2011
Pages: 352
Series: Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy, #1
Product dimensions: 5.30 (w) x 8.20 (h) x 1.10 (d)

Checkpoint!

This is hosted by Mari at Bookworm with a View. 

I've jumped back into my quest to be healthier and lighter.  The month of December was hard for me and especially the two weeks around Christmas and New Year's Day, but on January 2 I jumped back in.  Not the first, I had a cold and just wasn't too motivated!

Last week:
Ran 21 miles
Walked 2 miles
Zumba 20 minutes
Bellydancing 30 minutes
P90X Yoga 90 minutes

I used My Fitness Pal to track  my calories and ended the week above my goal by 145 calories.  For 7 days that felt pretty good.  I made myself be very honest about everything I ate and recorded even one chip here or there.  On Friday when I over did eating I decided I needed to workout again even though I had run in the morning.  I did not manage to get a long run in, my longest was just under 5 miles.  I ran with friends outside one day and the rest were on the treadmill.  I made sure I did something fitness wise everyday to try to set myself up for making exercise a habit in my life.

Events:
Superbowl 10K- Feb 5
West End St. Patrick's Day 5K-March 18
Emmaus 4 Miler- April 1

Possibly doing the a half marathon on April as well.  I need to make a decision as I know it sells out, but I'm just not sure I'm ready for it.

Goals this week:
Stay under my calories.
Make sure at least one day a week has a strength component
make a decision about the half marathon.

It's Monday, What are you reading?

Not sure what happened last week, but blogging just didn't happen for me, I missed all my regular posts.  So here's to a new week and getting back on track.

What I'm reading:

On my Ipod I am listening to Love in a Nutshell by Janet Evanovich.  It is an audio book I checked out of the library, they just started offering this program on Friday, and with my husband's help managed to transfer onto the Ipod.  So far I', enjoying it.

On my Ipod I am still reading Throwaway by Heather Huffman

On my kindle I am reading The Next Always by Nora Roberts (also checked out of the library)
 
In the car I am listening to The Scortch Trials by James Dashner
 
In print form I am reading The Scottish Prisioner by Diana Gabaldon
 

I don't think I finished anything last week, perhaps the reason for there being so few posts.  I've been caught up with getting my workouts and calorie counting in place.  I would say it was a New Year's Resolution, and it is in a way, but I started getting serious in July when i started running and more so in October when I started calorie counting.  I got a bit lazy in December and needed to get refocused on being healthy again and setting some goals. 

 

So new year and new goals and some new work on time management are in order!

Library E-Books!

Today our local library started lending out e-books.  I checked out my first book this morning and have it loaded on my Kindle.  I also checked out an audio book but I cannot seem to get it to transfer to my Ipod.  Not quite sure what it is I'm doing wrong there.  I downloaded one audio book from audible last month and got it to work, but the library system is different and I know I am probably just missing some easy piece.  Hopefully I'll get it sorted out so I can listen to a book while running!

Happy New Year to everyone!  I don't know quite why I haven't posted in so long, but hopefully I'm back in the swing of things now.  Perhaps it is that I haven't finished a book so I didn't feel like I had a review to post, but I missed the Saturday Snapshot, It's Monday, What are you reading? and Checkpoint this week which I don't have any good excuse for.  Time to start thinking about what pictures to use tomorrow!