Nothing to do about Blogging Books

So this has nothing to do with blogging about books but I am just finishing up with the final season of Friday Night Lights and I must say, I will miss it so.

Mostly the brooding, lonesome, lost cowboy Tim Riggins played by actor Taylor Kitsch. Sigh

I know. I know. It's only TV but it's damn good TV.

That's it.

Happy Viewing and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

WTH?!

My inability to finish a book lately has caused a sort of...mania with checking out massive amounts of cozy mysteries, science fiction romance, detective stories and well, Fifty Shades Darker. WTH?! I can't decide on anything but feel interested in EVERYTHING. I have no idea what is going on. On my nightstand I currently have A Kiss of Shadows by Laurel K. Hamilton, Moon Kissed by Patricia Briggs, Real Murders by Charlaine Harris, Night Passage by Robert Parker, Abby Cooper PI by Victoria Laurie and Bedeviled Eggs by Laura Childs.  Oh and the Fifty....

I'm obviously in some sort of escapism mood. I have no clue how to make this pass. 

Bring on the smut, I guess.

Atleast my Audio choice is going strong. Now if my son would allow me to listen to it in the car instead of those darn Imagination Movers...

Happy Reading and, as always thanks for stopping by.

red headed book child

Just what I needed

After four days of no electricity, a massive pile of lawn mess, fallen trees, a wet basement, wasted food, no air conditioning and lots of traveling from family home to other family homes, Monday night we received some relief. POWER BACK ON!

Just in time to toast up a pizza, bath the little one, get him tucked into a nice cool bedroom, and prop our feet to watch UNDER THE DOME.

I enjoyed the heck out of it. You?

Just what I needed.

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Life Post

Folks, we are coming up on my fourth year of book blogging. I've done giveaways, big posts, and whatnot but this year...well, I'm actually thinking more of change and what's next. I've explored the motivation behind my blog in yearly wrap posts and here and there. My blog definitely has changed; at times it has been very extensive and diverse and other times, I can barely slap up a few sentence review. This is life, especially when it involves a "hobby" per se.

Books will always be one of my favorite pastimes and I still very much like my blog. But I've been thinking of expanding it, either in a separate "life" blog that links on my sidebar OR just reinvent Red Headed Book Child all together. My life is bigger than just books and I've got a crap ton to say. 

I'm leaning more towards just revamping the look of Red Headed Book Child and incorporating more life posts rather than book posts.

My life has changed a lot in the last four years. 
To quote my Facebook post: "In the last 3 years, I went from having everything in place. A career, benefits, savings, a house, a beautiful baby, a happy marriage, and wicked sense of identity to losing my career, being denied insurance, using all my savings, not being able to afford to fix my old house, my baby becoming a little boy with special needs, a marriage that I have to remind myself to nurture sometimes and an identity that I'm still trying to figure out and regain. But through it all, I love my life and even with the recent turn of events, I will get through it once again. Because I 'effing rock."

So my blogging friends, I ask you. New Blog with New Name? Or Same Old Blog Name and 
new design?

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by 

(and thanks for your input in 

advance)

red headed book child

Must read before seeing movie!

Finally reading these two dystopian/paranormal teen sensations!

I'm enjoying Beautiful Creatures much more than Matched.

What do you all think?

I've always been a late bloomer, so to speak, when it comes to reading what's hot.

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

New Year's Eve reflections

This time of year it's fun to read all of the wrap up posts and the big dreams of the new year posts as well. Since I started this blog in 2009, I've always done a wrap up post; how many books I read, challenges I met or failed to meet, etc. 

This year that really isn't that important to me mostly because my role as a blogger and a reader has changed so much. In 2009 when I started this adventure, I really, really needed something like this. I needed this creative, literary outlet. I had been laid off. I was a stay at home mom. I rarely talked to adults. This was a HUGE lifeline for me. It became  a community.

Since then, every year, I've grown and adapted my blog to flow with the changes in my life. I'm no longer laid off, no longer a stay at home mom, and I occasionally talk to adults through out the day. My literary life, however,  has changed. I live a busy literary life, not just as a reader. I work at a library. I work at a bookstore. I blog at work. 

I'm almost too consumed by books to really devote any good attention to my blog. I just don't feel it's as  an important or necessary outlet for my literary desires anymore. Every day at work, I live books and I love it. But when I come home, I'm a mother and a wife and an active parent at my son's school. My life has a different focus now. 

That is evident in the amount of books I read this year. 22. My lifestyle, my pace that I have kept this year has contributed to more audio books. 16 so far. I can only really see this continuing.

So because I feel this year has been such a big change for me, I do not honestly know or really care to "outline" for anyone what shape my blog will take in 2013. But I can safely say it will include what I'm reading, listening to, etc. I also see much more personal items as well; my life as a mother to a soon-to-be 5 year old, my desires for a second child, my search for a career that will fulfill me and my quest to nurture my faith and soul in this ever changing, mixed up world we live in.

Like every year, I thank my readers and friends for sticking with me. I am not as present as I once was and it would be fair to say I have about 16 blogs out there that I absolutely love and seek out. (and no I won't list them-wink!) The rest...well, I just don't have the time. It's so big and ever changing. I just can't keep up. 

If this post sounds tired, that was not my wish. I'm merely reflective on this New Year's Eve. The little one asleep. The musician husband playing at a gig. The house quiet and me thinking.

I wish all of  you a Happy New Year and look forward to continuing on wherever this blogging journey takes me. 

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Modern Library Top 100

Oh, Modern Library...

Let me just start by saying, I know that I am a well read person.

I know that I am open to any and all literature and feel comfortable recommending to readers of all types. I am educated. I know my shit...I mean, stuff.

Then why does this bloody Modern Library Top 100 List

hang over me like

a giant fricking boulder?

No, I don't have an English degree.

No, I didn't graduate from college.

And because my high school English classes were taught by the football coach, we only read The Scarlet Letter. (I'm pretty sure it was only because he didn't want us to be having sex and that was the way he could lecture us all about it).

But I am good enough and smart enough and darnit, people do like me.

And I am going to conquer you once and for all you...you persnickety

You-are-nothing-if-you-have-not-read-this list, you.

How many? I don't know. But some will be read this year, by golly.

Because seriously, 9 books read total? That is just lame sauce.

The Board's List The Reader's List

(4 read) (5 read)

Anyone with me?

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Pistol Annies

I don't normally post music on my blog but sometimes I just have to share! I am a huge fan of country music. I grew up on it. Love it. Love it. Love it. I mostly listen to old country but have always had a few newer artists that I have followed. Miranda Lambert is one of those newer artists I think rocks! Her new trio Pistol Annies is also on my top of favs to listen to. The other two ladies in this band are amazing vocalists and the album does not have one song that I don't like. The song "Lemon Drop" makes me smile and I've been listening to it non stop.

Click on the title of the song for a listen. Check out their website too!

Pistol Annies "Lemon Drop"

"My muffler's tied on with a guitar string
I owe 7,000 dollars to a bank machine
Before this car is ever really mine
And some fine day I'll drive her downtown
Get a burger, fries and a royal crown
Thankin' God that I'll never
Have to pay another dime

My life is like a lemon drop
I'm suckin' on the bitter to get to the sweet part
I know there are better days ahead

I got dirty shirts and worn out jeans
I owe two dozen quarters to a washin' machine
Before these clothes will ever really shine
But I got me a man, that just don't care
If his little darlin's got underware
I know someday I'm gonna be his wife

My life is like a lemon drop
I'm suckin' on the bitter to get to the sweet part
I know there are better days ahead

I got thrift store curtains in the windows of my home
I'm payin' for a house that the landlord owns
Bought a TV on a credit card
It'll take me ten years to pay if off
But some fine day I'll be drinkin' a beer
In a big backyard I own free and clear
All I know, there's better days ahead

So I play my hopes and play my dreams
Just like two coins in a slot machine
Sing "Glory, Hallelujah" if everything works out fine

My life is like a lemon drop
I'm suckin' on the bitter to get to the sweet part
I know there are better days ahead

Lord I know there are better days ahead
Thank God"

Happy Listening and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Help! I'm in a slump!

HELP!

I have tried my darndest to get into a book these days but...darnit, i just can't do it. So I need your help out there. Here are the books that I have started for my mystery challenge and for the life of me, I can't seem to get passed 40 pages on any of them.

Have any of you read these?

Do I move along on any of them?

Or do they all just stink?

Or is it just me?

HELP!

So Cold the River by Michael Kortya

Before I go to Sleep by S. J Watson

Half Past Dawn by Richard Doetsch

Trespasser by Paul Doiron

These are the letters of the alphabet I have NOT read yet for my challenge. Two books that are really starting to be good, Lethal by Sandra Brown and The Nightmare Thief by Meg Gardiner. But guess what? I've already completed those letters.

Grr Arrgh. My challenge is haunting me!!!

What to do fellow bloggers? What to do....

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

A Perfect Quote

A Perfect Quote shared by a former Borders employee.

Beautiful.

‎"But then, leaving any bookstore is hard, especially on a day in August, when the street outside burns and glares, and the books inside are cool and crisp to the touch; especially on a day in January, when the wind is blowing, the ice is treacherous, and the books inside seem to gather together in colorful warmth. It's hard to leave a bookstore any day of the year, though, because a bookstore is one of the few places where all the cantankerous, conflicting, alluring voices of the world coexist in peace and order, and the avid reader is as free as a person can possibly be because she is free to choose among them." - Jane Smiley, Victoria Magazine, August 1994

red headed book child

Just because...

I recently saw The Kids are All Right because it's a movie that I knew would be right up my alley. I knew I would get great performances from Annette Bening and Julianne Moore and I love the kid from Bridge to Terabithia, Josh Hutcherson.

But I didn't expect to get hit by the force that is....

Mark Ruffalo

Oh my.

My.

My.

My.

Hi there.

Have you seen him...I mean, the movie?

red headed book child

Tales from my Childhood- Little House style

Little House on the Prairie, how I love you so!

While in NYC I had a chance to meet "Mary" from Little House on the Prairie. Very exciting for this country girl who has seen every episode of that show multiple times. It was a staple in our household growing up. Now, I was never THAT country but I had a lot of "Hal Pint" in me. I liked to kick it in the woods, climbing trees, being inquisitive, talking my sister's ear off at night with all of my silly thoughts and sometimes just being a nosy little busy body.

I unfortuntately gave my copy of "The Way I see it" to my mother right away as a gift thinking she would love it. She did, however, yesterday I was watching the Today show and saw that Nellie from Little House as a book out. So now I am totally on a Little House kick!

I absolutely ADORE Melissa Gilbert by the way and not just in Little House. I've seen just about all of the cheesy Hallmark movies and the horribly tragic Lifetime movies. I'm all over it. Her and Nancy McKeon from Facts of Life are my favs on the Lifetime front!

Anyway, I am going to snag my copy of The Way I see It sooner than later and check out the other two memoirs as well. I also dragged out my crusty old copies of the Little House books. (Sigh) They made me so happy as a kid! I don't know if I'll reread them all but definitely

Little House in the Big Woods.

Any Little House fans out there?

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Happy Birthday to me!

Yes, it's true. It's my birthday today. I am 35 years young. I can't believe it. Inside I still fell like the crazy, big haired 12 year old running around in the country with no shoes on and a book stuffed in my pants. Where does the time go?

My day will be like the others; running after a 2 year old and attempting to clean the house BUT I did get a chocolate cake out of the deal yesterday and I will get to see one of my favorite musicians this Saturday. Patty Griffin and Buddy Miller! yeah!

Though it's been kind of a shit year (sorry for the language) with getting laid off, my son's broken leg and my grandma passing, I did have the fortune to be able to spend some wonderful time at home with my son AND I found all of you!

I have to say never in my many years of book selling would I have thought I would be reading and reviewing books online, of all places. But I have found a nice, warm fuzzy place here at

Red Headed Book Child and I hope I will continue into my next birthday!

Thanks for sharing along with me and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

The House on Tradd Street

Has anyone else read Karen White?

I am absolutely adoring this series. The House on Tradd Street is marvelous. I can not wait to review it. I just had to tell you all because it's been since Tuesday since I blogged about anything and well, I kind of missed you all.

Have a great weekend. I'll be cuddling up with this one trying to finish!

Happy Reading, and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child